Guidance

VAPC south west England: meeting minutes 5 July 2021

Updated 10 January 2024

Meeting time

9.30am to 11.30am

Meeting location

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the meeting was held virtually via Zoom.

Attendance

Committee members attending:

Paul Cartwright - Chair (PC)
Jeff Spencer - Vice-Chair (JS)
Tony Thompson (TT)
Anica Alvarez Nishio (AAN)
Andrew Ottaway (AO)
David Wood (DW)
Hamilton Elliott (HE)
Ben Obese-Jecty (BOJ)
Chris Rose (CRO)
Charlie Radclyffe (CRA)
Guy Williams (GW)
Duncan Tilley (DT)

Guest attending:

Tim Jones (TJ), CEO, Positive Transitions
Arren Hymas (AH) – Defence Transition Service, Regional Manager (South)

Apologies:

Lee Bushby (LB)
Dawn Civill-Williams (DCW)
Ben Bennington (BB)
Franklin O-Antwi (FOA)

Declaration of Interest by all

There were no declarations of conflicting interests.

Minutes

Chair’s welcome (PC)

• PC will continue to develop the VAPC Southwest (VAPC-SW) Plan (last updated in April 2021). Committee to review the SW plan at October 2021 meeting.
• We currently have 2 types of teams:
  • Crosscutting: Coordination, Benchmarking (new) and the Veterans UK project (new).
  • Veterans’ strategy: Health, Justice, Transition and Regional Covenant.
• CRA to produce a briefing for our October meeting, summarising our recent work, both formal statute-detailed duties and informal duties supporting the wider veteran population.

Vice-chair’s priorities and issues (JS)

• Impressed by recent progress and crucially, that our projects and teams are connected.
• Our current main efforts concern Health, the wider Covenant, Data (and benchmarking) and feedback received from veterans on the Veterans UK process in order to propose systemic improvements.
• Health: 18 months’ work with NHS SW looks about to come to a practical solution on a 2 year 3-County project (Cornwall, Dorset and Durham Dales) and has been funded by NHS England.
• The Wider Covenant: TT has made remarkable progress and has proposed VAPC as an arbiter of good practice for Ministry of Defence (MoD) Covenant legislation. JS has developed a draft brief for the MoD Covenant team to demonstrate the SW VAPC’s collaboration across the SW with the military, Veterans, Councils and the NHS. JS reiterated that the relationship with the MoD Covenant team is crucial.
• Data and Benchmarking: The project has the potential to influence, engage and standardise. Likely to be of interest to both the MoD Covenant Team, the Map of Need project, individual councils, and the SW NHS project.
• VAPC-SW website: JS suggested that we need a website and a direct contact for all who wish to connect with us. However, VAPC must be careful that we don’t appear as a 24hr helpline. The connections we want to encourage need to be clarified at National level before we launch any direct public access.
• Engaging other regions: CRO’s work in engaging with and learning from other regions has great potential to bring best practice to most regions.
• Two issues were discussed at chairs that we ought to follow up:
• Health.: Dan Brooks (VAPC-SE), project lead for Op Courage, is briefing Chairs in July. The SW NHS project is now 18 months in progress and is now formally funded. SW VAPC health project needs to be a key early part of any National Health VAPC project.
• Data issue between VAPC (Yorkshire & Humber) and Veterans UK: We should see how we can learn from VAPC(Y&H)’s experience/discoveries.

Guest speaker:

Tim Jones, CEO of Positive Transition (TJ)

• TJ demonstrated their online system, which could be used to support personnel in their transition from the military to the civilian world. The system covers topics such as Employment, Accommodation, Finances, Community, Health and Wellbeing. The current focus is from 2 years pre-discharge to 2 years post-discharge, but this could be extended to all serving personnel and/or to wider family support structures, as required (for example special forces, higher needs).
• The committee is grateful for TJ demonstrating their system. It was beneficial to see such a “one-stop-shop” solution and to understand some of the options available to the Ministry of Defence when considering how to better support service personnel and veterans in the future.

Transition (GW)

• GW is engaging with a soon-to-be-discharged sailor and learning about their day-to-day experiences during the transition process.
• CRO asked about the current official MOD transition process. If VAPCs were briefed on the current official procedural details, then we can better assess how closely they are achieved in practice.
• JS referred to Veterans UK’s recent questionnaire seeking feedback on their services. Veterans UK report a very high number of responses and VAPCs will receive a full report which will hopefully guide service improvements.

Veterans UK Effectiveness Review (DW)

• This cross-team project hopes to identify opportunities for the VAPC to engage with Veterans UK in a way that better helps veterans, Veterans UK, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and the VAPC. Once the project is a little more established, DW intends to engage with other VAPC regions on the project.
• PC highlighted that Veterans UK are part of Defence Business Services (DBS) and asked whether there are formal audits of Veterans UK’s operations which we can review. DW to research Veterans UK audit procedures.
• The current complaints system is long and often frustrates complainants, who may drop their complaint before it is resolved. VAPCs need more data on the progression between the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) complaint tiers, the client drop out, and details of the outcomes from the complaints system.
• The Veterans UK digitisation programme must ensure that frustrations in the current paper process are not carried over into a digital alternative. VAPC-SW have expressed a wish for an input into the digitisation programme development with Vets UK to try to address matters like this at an early stage.
• DW’s previous work on the Southwest Partnership Board Project showed that information and data are often difficult to acquire. Data from multiple sources (e.g. MOD, third sector, CTP) and processing it in a coordinated manner can improve decision making, both within the organisations providing data and a wider range of other organisations. It is important for the VAPC to be clear on the information it needs. DW and benchmarking team to liaise in early 2022 once the benchmarking team have collated and processed the current data acquisition

Benchmarking

• The initial focus is to identify metrics on what local councils, town councils and district councils are currently doing and seeking examples of best practices. Future stages will support big picture strategic benchmarking initiatives. Personal impressions are maybe the most important metric at this stage.
• TT to share benchmarking list of councils with allocated committee members. [Completed post-meeting].
• Project stages:
  • Stage 1: Engage with councils and learn from them.
  • Stage 2: Committee members are to contact their allocated benchmarking councils in July and August and to submit a short summary of each council. The benchmarking team are to produce a summary of these findings by 30 September.
  • Stage 3: Analyse summaries and develop recommendations. PC asked the team to share a brief overview at the October quarterly meeting along the lines of, “Of our 35 regions, 22 are engaged with the Covenant. Particular areas of strength and weakness are…”. Keep input simple. Benchmarking team to prepare a summary of councils for October meeting.
  • Stage 4: Forward planning, identifying gaps and next steps.
• The MOD Covenant team lead is very interested in the feedback we gather and how it can help them guide their work and what they may want from the VAPC in the future.
• PC: Some people may be very busy and don’t know who VAPC are, nor how they benefit from communicating with us. If any member meets significant resistance, our chair or Communications team can contact them to inform them about us and how we can work together.
• DW: The VAPC-SW could consider developing its engagement with the Southwest Partnership Board. Post meeting note: TT is to attend October meeting.

Health (AO):

• The team are working with a small trust demonstrating best practice in North Norfolk and with VAPC (Eastern) regarding working with Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust and getting their Armed Forces Champion into action.
• With JS, we will meet the SW regional head of the veterans’ covenant healthcare alliance regarding improved collaboration across the three Cornish NHS trusts.

Casework (HE)

• One ongoing case relates to a veteran who was overpaid a significant amount of money. The team have learnt about overpayment legislation and Veterans UK’s processes, including the tone of their letters.
• Rob Rowntree (Deputy Head of Operations, Veterans UK) has confirmed that Veterans UK will change the format of their letters to make them less blunt.
• How can the VAPC identify trends as opposed to handling individual cases? Should the committee be engaging more with charities (both national and regional)?
• JS explained that recent attempts to understand the reason for a severe and unexplained pension reduction resulted in a sub-optimal answer from Veterans UK which is still being progressed with a view to improve Vets UK systems.

Communications, southwest region (GW)

• GW has developed a template for a VAPC-SW website (not yet launched) to inform veterans in the southwest about our role, our current actions and how we advise the government.
• JS supports the concept, but we must be clear about who we are trying to help and what we are/aren’t offering.
• CRO suggested that the comms team develop a briefing on what this website could offer, how it will assist the VAPC, safeguards to use.

Covenant (TT)

• TT is engaging with a range of organisations and developing ideas for how the VAPC can better engage with the draft statutory guidance to be soon issued.

Coordination (CRO)

• CRO continues to reach out to other VAPC regions in the interest of learning from other regions’ best practices. What is best practice, and how can they enable us to be more effective both regionally and as a national set of bodies? CRO highlighted that this national engagement focuses on administrative matters rather than policy (which is for the chairs). PC emphasised that we are not in competition with the other regions.
• Most regions desire more coordination, more central guidance, and more central support, particularly regarding IT. Achieving these developments will require additional funding from Veterans UK.
• One suggestion is to have quarterly secretarial/coordination team meetings. CRO to develop a proposal and share it with secretaries/coordination team leads and to consider inviting Veterans UK.
• CRO to distribute a summary of our best practices to potentially share with other committees.
• CRA proposed gathering feedback from committee members about our meetings and general operations. PC agreed with the proposal and asked for a simple summary to be distributed afterwards. CRA to develop meetings and general committee feedback processes.

NED Training & Recruitment (AAN)

• AAN summarised the recent Cabinet Office Non-Executive Director (NED) training:
  • The Cabinet Office views people sitting on Arm’s Length Bodies (ALBs), such as the VAPCs, as fulfilling a NED function. They want to nurture best practices and keep a closer eye on what is happening, partly related to finances.
  • Highlighted the importance of networking with peers (within our VAPC, with other VAPCs and with other ALBs).
  • There was a strong VAPC presence at the training.
  • On appointment, NEDs should be issued by their ALB a set of documents detailing their ALB and role(s). The ALB’s sponsoring department should provide a set of documents about the relationship between them and the ALB.
  • CRO: The trainers stated that if we aren’t receiving the necessary funds or tools from our sponsoring department to enable us to do our job, we should discuss this with our sponsoring department. Must be clear on what we want, prove we achieve our goals, and articulate the benefits provided by the additional funding.
• Recruiting additional VAPC members:
  • What skills do we need? Suggestions: Secretary, Policy, Justice, and Data and tech
  • AAN stated that we could mentor people with valuable backgrounds and experiences but lacking committee-related skills. Co-opting such members could allow them to assess the role and the committee to consider the co-opted members abilities.
  • TT referred to the Map of Need training and that most veterans in the southwest are in Cornwall and Wiltshire. Should we focus on new members coming from these areas or areas with less veteran presence?
  • CRO reminded members about the Cabinet Office’s LinkedIn group for Public Appointees.
  • The committee supports the Welsh VAPC chair’s initiative to undertake active recruiting with outside organisations such as Fight with Pride.

Chair’s closing (PC)

• A lot is going on at the national level, which can sometimes cause friction. PC has been trying to shield us from most of those discussions.
• We are sharing a lot of information and need to balance the need to assimilate information with achieving our goals.
• Regarding individual casework: PC believes that if we have a choice between improving by 1% to 2% the lives of ten thousand veterans or making a 99% difference to one veteran, then we should focus on the latter. Such examples will enable us to provide better examples when talking to a minister.

AOB

• DW: The SW Partnership Board has appointed a new outreach officer. DW provided their details after the meeting.
• PC: Proposed that future quarterly meetings are in person at Taunton. Monthly meetings will continue to take place on Zoom. CRA to set up a weekly drop-in Zoom call, which we will run over the summer and review in October.
• Coord to engage with The Rifles, Taunton, regarding arrangements for our October 2021 meeting.