Progress

We will promote Scottish Government-funded employability support in Welcome to Scotland.

Scottish Government-funded employability support is now referenced within Welcome to Scotland, signposting veterans and their families to the support available in their local authority area. Each local authority has employability services in place which are required to consider and respond to user and local labour market needs. We have shared the link to Welcome to Scotland with both CTP and the Families Federations for wider distribution across their networks.

We will ensure that Scotland’s apprenticeship suite of offerings will continue to be promoted to the veterans and Armed Forces community.

Skills Development Scotland continues to promote Scotland’s apprenticeships at various events and provides updates to partners as appropriate. In addition, we include apprenticeships, and the associated signposting, in Welcome to Scotland.

The Minister for HE & FE made a statement to the Scottish Parliament on post-school education reform on 5 December 2023 where he reiterated our commitment to streamline funding for colleges, universities and apprenticeships. This work is still at very early stages.

Furthermore, we are taking forward reform of apprenticeships with an aim to: reduce the complexity of the existing apprenticeship system; make it more transparent; and maximise the value of investment to learners and the economy. Work is underway to develop an evidence base for the work to improve the apprenticeship models for Foundation, Modern and Graduate Apprenticeships. We expect this work to take until the end of the year. We will then work with stakeholders and learners to build on the strengths and make improvements to the models over the next few years.

Work for Scotland, the Scottish Government’s jobs website, will continue to be linked on the Forces Families Jobs website.

The Forces Families jobs website continues to have a link to Work for Scotland to ensure that Armed Forces families can access job opportunities within the Scottish Government.

We will continue to offer the Going Forward Into Employment scheme for veterans and their families and guaranteed interviews for veterans.

We continue to offer these schemes to veterans and their families. As of August 2024 there are at least 139 veterans working for the Scottish Government. 

We will continue to work with local authorities to identify opportunities to ensure that advice and support is clearly sign-posted and promoted proactively and to ensure that the latest local labour market information and circumstances are understood and capitalised upon.

Following the initial release of data from Scotland’s Census on the numbers and locations of veterans in Scotland, the Veterans Minister wrote to all local authority Armed Forces and Veterans Champions to highlight the percentage of veterans in their areas and identified the Census data as an opportunity to consider how best to support veterans and their families at a local level. The Minister offered all Champions the opportunity to meet with him to discuss the data, with employment (including advice and guidance) likely to be a topic of such a meeting.

We will continue to promote Scottish Government jobs at CTP’s employment fairs.

The Scottish Government had a stand at CTP’s employment fair at Murrayfield in April where we engaged with veterans, Service personnel and Service leavers. We provided advice and guidance on working for the Scottish Government and how to apply, as well as the employment schemes available to them, including the Guaranteed Interview Scheme and Going Forward Into Employment.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with veterans, service leavers and representative organisations to help identify the areas for improvement across both Scottish Government and partner services.

The Scottish Government continues to maintain its strong relationship with the veterans sector including right across the public, private and third sector. We provide funding to representative organisations primarily through the Scottish Veterans Fund, which directly supports veterans and their families, and the grant to Veterans Scotland. 

Deliver the NHS Armed Forces Talent Programme.

The NHS Scotland Armed Forces Talent Programme has been developed to inspire the Armed Forces Community (AFC) to consider NHS Scotland as a potential career destination. This includes veterans and their families. It will enable access to information on the range of employment opportunities and the pathways to joining the health and social care workforce.

The AFTP provides a value-adding centralised resource by offering advice, guidance, support and action to our target audiences - the AFC and NHS Scotland community – to increase the number of those from the AFC gaining employment with NHS Scotland. The AFTP has progressed a number of projects including development of the webpages on the NHS Careers website with the addition of an online registration process for members of the community to access information and support (currently at 236 members) and the running of online and in person information sessions. It continues to establish an NHS Scotland wide ambassador programme (currently at 65 members) to guide those interested in the NHS with real life experience. The programme continues to implement enhanced relationships with a broad range of key partner organisations and has refreshed and expanded support and development activity for Health Boards.

Work continues to map key workforce needs and existing pathways to the available skills, experience and aspirations of the AFC in both clinical and non-clinical roles alike; identifying mechanisms to develop and implement new pathways where needed, including scoping of alignment with those within the AFC with existing health related qualification and registration. Looking ahead, the AFTP will continue to explore more avenues to provide opportunities for all of our AFC, which includes: Funding of a Royal College of Nursing Cadet scheme; placement activity for AFC members into appropriately identified posts; and continued work to engage and build on the material that our AFC finds of most value. 

We will consider additional interventions and activity to improve employment and skills-related advice and support for veterans and their families when more detailed Census data is published.

Later this year NRS will publish Census data on additional topics including housing, employment and health and a new tool will be added to the website allowing the data to be analysed for particular groups of people, including veterans.

Work for Scotland, the Scottish Government’s jobs website, will continue to be linked on the Forces Families Jobs website.

The Forces Families jobs website continues to have a link to Work for Scotland to ensure that Armed Forces families are made aware of job opportunities within the Scottish Government.

We will continue to offer the Going Forward Into Employment scheme for veterans and their families and guaranteed interviews for veterans.

We continue to offer these schemes to veterans and their families. As of August 2024 there are at least 139 veterans working for the Scottish Government.

We will continue to promote Scottish Government jobs at CTP’s employment fairs.

The Scottish Government had a stand at CTP’s employment fair at Murrayfield in April where we engaged with veterans, Service personnel and Service leavers. We provided advice and guidance on working for the Scottish Government and how to apply, as well as the employment schemes available to them, including the Guaranteed Interview Scheme and Going Forward Into Employment.

We are committed to the development of a new funding model for post-school education provision. This will continue to deliver free tuition but improve the parity of living cost support on offer for those wishing to study part time or flexibly. It will continue to promote post-16 education as a positive destination for widening access students.

We have not yet established a timeline for completion of this work.

Skills Development Scotland will continue to work closely with the MOD and the Careers Transition Partnership to increase the levels of careers guidance and support offered to Service leavers and families.

The approach to supporting early service leavers will be discussed under the MOU between SDS and MOD when the new CTP contract commences. Furthermore, SDS continues to engage with spouses and partners, for example at a Naval families event and at RM Condor Learning week.

SG has also agreed expectations, jointly with delivery partners, that our services should offer wrap-around support as standard, and operate as part of a public service offering aimed at addressing individual’s needs. No-One Left Behind (NOLB) continues to provide tailored individual wrap-around support, including to spouses/partners of veterans and those unable to take up support offers due to health or disability.

From April 2024, all SG funded employability support will be delivered through NOLB which continues to offer employment support services for those facing significant challenges when leaving the Armed Forces. Much of this support is delivered through Local Employability Partnerships (LEPs) at Local Authority level. SG continue to liaise with LEPs to ensure veterans remain a priority group and details on NOLB have been included in Welcome to Scotland to help better ensure that ‘advice and support is clearly sign-posted and promoted proactively’.

As part of Scotland’s Devolved Employment Service: Statistical Summary Series, data on Armed Forces veterans for No One Left Behind were reported for the first time in February 2024. In the most recent quarter (October - December 2023), 47 people (1%) reported being an Armed Forces veteran, while 4,270 (96%) reported not being a veteran. This information was unknown for 122 people (3%). The proportion of people reporting being a veteran has been consistently around 1% of total participants supported through No One Left Behind. 395 veterans have been supported through No One Left Behind since April 2019. The majority of these (276) have entered support after a significant shift in the delivery model was implemented in April 2022, which saw Local Employability Partnerships take on responsibility for design and delivery of services which meet the needs of users in their area and local labour markets.

The Scottish Government will continue to discuss ELCAS and any future Transition model with stakeholders, most notably the UK Government, to help ensure the service is fit for purpose.

Administration of, and any changes to, the ELCAS offering and Transition from the Armed Forces is reserved to the UK Government. The Scottish Government does not have the remit to change these. However, the Scottish Government will continue to engage in any discussions on ELCAS and Transition, including with partners and stakeholders such as SCQF and SDS, primarily through the relevant Employability group.

We will begin a programme of reform on funding for learners and apprenticeships.

A series of independent reviews on education, skills and qualifications in Scotland have shown that there is complexity within the system that leads to inefficiency and a lack of clarity on the return for public investment. As a first step in a broad and long-term programme of reform, the Minister for Higher and Further Education and Minister for Veterans launched a consultation on funding for learners in the Scottish Parliament on 25 June 2024. A 12-week consultation will seek input on bringing learner support funding together in one place, and to bringing the funding for provision, including apprenticeship provision, into one place. The aim is for our education and skills system to work as a single system which is easy to navigate, taking collective responsibility to better support and improve the provision for people moving towards and within the labour market. 

Alongside this, we are taking forward reform of apprenticeships with an aim to: reduce the complexity of the existing apprenticeship system; make it more transparent; and maximise the value of investment to learners and the economy. Work is underway to develop an evidence base for the work to improve the apprenticeship models for Foundation, Modern and Graduate Apprenticeships. We expect this work to take until the end of the year. We will then work with stakeholders and learners to build on the strengths and make improvements to the models over the next few years.

We will continue to support and administer the Armed Forces and Veterans Community Group (AFVCG), which is linked to the SCQFP Veterans Steering Group and which continue to work together on key areas such as ELCAS.

The AFVCG continues to work closely with MOD and CTP to improve the ELCAS offering with some progress being made in terms of understanding institutional and user (e.g. Service personnel) issues and needs.

Work will continue on the development and promotion of SCQF’s Military Skills Discovery Tool.

SCQF are currently in the process of mapping Army rank (and, through this, NATO) to SCQF level so that both Service personnel and potential employers will have an easy benchmark understanding of the baseline working SCQF-level of an individual based solely on their rank. This process is based on the leadership and management qualifications as personnel move up through the ranks and on a matching of job description to our employer levelling tool. This final part is currently underway, after which we will have the evidence to underpin the validity of the matching process. This should prove particularly useful for employers to give them a better understanding of the rank structure. 

SCQF continue to promote the veterans skills and qualifications discovery tool through social media and are discussing joint promotion plans with SDS.

SCQF would like to consider completion of all military roles mapping so that all military qualifications can sit within a standalone military tool but this will depend on interest from RAF and Navy, and staff resource. SCQF will revisit the subject of keeping the qualifications tool up-to-date with the MOD in their workplan for 24/25 and will review any new qualifications introduced since the date of the original data. 

My World of Work is being developed to create a more effective customer journey between tools and resources. The military element of the Skills Discovery and skills mapping is part of this development. The SDS MyWoW Team are building a standalone military tool which will provide a more targeted offer and better experience for our users.

We will deliver employer engagement activity as a key component of employability support.

Employer engagement activity is a critical component of employability support, and will be managed locally in line with the No One Left Behind delivery model. The Local Employability Partnership Board works with a range of stakeholders including small and medium sized enterprises as potential employers for people looking for sustainable employment.

We will maintain and develop connections to the business community through the relevant employability group.

There is an ongoing review into the future of the Veterans Employability Strategic Group. A number of options have been considered to ensure that in whichever guise it takes going forward, that an Employment group is delivering effective outputs, making best use of stakeholder time, and has an appropriate membership, which will include those from the private sector. The Scottish Government will be represented in any group going forward and we hope to conclude this review, with an agreed position, by the end of 2024.

SCQF will continue to engage employers and the business community through the ongoing development of the Military Skills Discovery Tool.

SCQF continues to have regular discussions with employers regarding veterans qualifications and how these related to the SCQF. In addition, SCQF regularly offers to link employers with CTP and discusses veterans and Service leavers as a rich source of talent to address skills gaps.

We will continue to support and deliver the Scottish Veterans Fund.

Through the Scottish Veterans Fund we are currently providing funding to Salute My Job’s Career Jumpstart Programme which is a development of projects to reskill jobseekers from the Armed Forces community to realign and develop jobseekers’ military and security experience for employment in roles in greatest demand in public, private, and third sector. This includes, for example, placing job seekers from the Armed Forces community in cyber security or related roles.

Work will be undertaken to understand the current social enterprise landscape in Scotland; identify the organisations that are already supporting veterans and how this can be built upon. This will include engaging with organisations including Social Enterprise Scotland (SES) to identify ways in which Social Enterprises can support the veterans and Armed Forces community.

Scottish Government policy officials have had initial discussions with Social Enterprise Scotland to discuss the current landscape and how social enterprises are currently supporting veterans. We are arranging additional meetings to discuss this in more detail and better understand how social enterprises can be used as a model to support veterans and their families. We will also seek feedback from our campaign working with the business community to help employers understand the benefits that veterans bring to the workforce, during the development of which SES were engaged.

SG will identify opportunities to promote social enterprises among the veteran community and seek examples of good practice. 

We have shared resources, links and signposting on social enterprises, sources of funding, Scottish Government policy and strategy, and asked for case studies and examples of good practice, with the AFV community through an article in the Veterans Scotland newsletter.

SG will demonstrate visible support for the work of social enterprises and their support to veterans and their families.

Both the Minister for Veterans and the-then Minister for Community Wealth and Public Finance have visited Scotland’s Bravest Manufacturing Company recently to hear more about their work and how they are supporting veterans into employment.

The Minister for Veterans will continue to engage regularly with the veterans charity sector.

In addition to meeting and engaging with the sector at various times throughout the year, the Minister for Veterans has bi-annual joint meetings with Veterans Scotland, Poppyscotland, Legion Scotland and Erskine to help foster a joined-up, collaborative approach with some of the primary organisations offering support to veterans in Scotland.

We will encourage collaborative working through the Scottish Veterans Fund.

For the 2023-24 Scottish Veterans Fund, the Scottish Government encouraged bids for projects which promote collaboration and partnership from amongst and outwith the veterans charitable sector. An exemplar of this is a project led by Scotland’s Bravest Manufacturing Company (SBMC), which received £50,000 for 23/24. The project has developed and piloted a new 22 month SBMC traineeship programme, which specifically targets early service leavers and helps veterans in their long term integration to the workforce and civilian society following their transition from the military. Through this project SBMC are not only supporting veterans to gain qualifications and practical skills, they are working alongside corporate partners such as Amey and BAE Systems to raise awareness of the benefits of veteran employment and arrange placements for veterans involved in the programme.

We will revisit the work to map the service charities operating in Scotland through the relevant Employment group.

This work will be revisited with Poppyscotland and partners when the review of the VESG has been completed. In addition, in July, Veterans Scotland refreshed its information booklet, helping veterans better understand the support available across a wide range of topics, including employment. 

We will continue to support the MOD/OVA to better inform Service leavers by continuing to promote our Welcome to Scotland publication, which is updated each year.

An updated version of Welcome to Scotland was published in spring 2024, informed again through extensive consultation with the Armed Forces and partners across the veterans sectors to ensure that the guide is both up to date and contains the most important information for personnel and their families ahead of relocation to Scotland. This includes an entire section dedicated to Housing and we have shared the link to Welcome to Scotland with both CTP and the Families Federations for wider distribution across their networks.

We will continue to work closely with UK Government to understand the actions they plan on taking in order to better prepare Service leavers for entering the civilian housing market and determine opportunities for SG to support these efforts.

Transition is reserved and it is therefore the responsibility of the UK Government to prepare Service leavers to leave the Military. Nevertheless, we continue to engage with the OVA on cross-UK veterans projects including Op Fortitude and the Veterans Capital Housing Fund to ensure Scotland’s interests continue to be represented.

We will share with MOD and OVA the relevant published information and identify ways in which the military can promote this within their own organisations, seeking to understand if/how SG can support these efforts.

An updated version of Welcome to Scotland was published in spring 2024, informed again through extensive consultation with the Armed Forces and partners across the veterans sectors to ensure that the guide is both up to date and contains the most important information for personnel and their families ahead of relocation to Scotland. This includes a section dedicated to Housing.

We will continue to support the work of Housing Options Scotland and its Military Matters service.

We continue to support Housing Options Scotland which includes the Military Matters project amongst its services. Military Matters focuses on housing issues affecting people serving in the armed forces in Scotland, UK service personnel transitioning into civilian life in Scotland and veterans. The service offers help to find the right home in the right place. Since it began in 2012, Military Matters has helped almost 1,600 households. In 2023-24 the project received a total of 263 new referrals. In quarter one of 2024-25, Military Matters received 45 new referrals. 

We will update our publication “A Scottish Housing Guide for People leaving the Armed Forces and Ex-Service Personnel“, first published in 2018.

We intend to do this by the end of 2024.

We will continue to engage the network of Local Authority Armed Forces and Veterans Champions, particularly in relation to the outputs from Scotland’s Census to better understand what veterans and their families need at a local level. This data may also help inform the training requirements of local authority front-line staff.

Following the initial release of data from Scotland’s Census on the numbers and locations of veterans in Scotland, the Veterans Minister wrote to all local authority Armed Forces and Veterans Champions to highlight the percentage of veterans in their areas and identified Census data as an opportunity to consider how best to support veterans and their families at a local level. The Minister offered all Champions the opportunity to meet with him to discuss the data. Later this year, NRS will publish Census data on additional topics including housing, employment and health and a new tool will be added to the website allowing the data to be analysed for particular groups of people, including veterans.

We will liaise with SFHA (Scottish Federation of Housing Associations) GWSF (Glasgow West of Scotland Forum) and ALACHO (Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers) to promote to their members ex-Service personnel as a priority group under ‘Reasonable Preference Allocations Priority’ policy.

A letter was sent from the Minister for Housing to stakeholders in January 2024 which asked them to consider including additional priority in their allocations policy for veterans.

We will support local authorities in the preparation of their Housing Need and Demand Assessments (which covers social landlords) in order to confirm the specialist housing needs of the Armed Forces Community are considered. This could include the number, location, type, size and tenure of housing required as well as any specialist housing requirements.

The Scottish Government’s Centre for Housing Market Analysis (CHMA) has continued to review Housing Need and Demand Assessments submitted by local authorities and has provided feedback on these. The HNDA Guidance will be refreshed at the end of 2025 and this will include the guidance on veterans and the Armed Forces Community.

SG will encourage local authorities to fully consider the housing requirement of the Armed Forces Community when preparing a Local Housing Strategy and to ensure that appropriate engagement takes place with relevant organisations to inform the development of each strategy.

In reviewing Local Housing Strategies that have been submitted by local authorities, the Scottish Government has continued to ensure that this includes a focus for local authorities to consider the housing requirement of the Armed Forces Community when preparing a LHS. The Scottish Government will refresh its Local Housing Strategy guidance and will ensure that it continues to include a focus on housing requirement of the armed forces community and veterans.

Funding can be made available through our Affordable Housing Supply Programme to deliver homes specifically for veterans where Local Authorities identify this as a strategic priority.

There have been no new Affordable Housing Supply Programme approvals this year where the client group has been specified as veterans.

The Scottish Government will work to improve the provision of guidance for frontline local authority (LA) and other Registered Social Landlord staff on the principles of the Armed Forces Covenant (AFC) and each council’s policy on housing support for veterans. 

We will revisit this work through engagement with the Champions, following the release of Census data.

The Scottish Government will review Local Housing Strategies submitted by local authorities and provide feedback to ensure that: the needs of the veterans and Armed Forces community are considered; and there has been engagement with the relevant veterans organisations.

Local authorities are responsible for assessing housing need and demand and setting out how the requirement for housing will be met through their Local Housing Strategies and Strategic Housing Investment Plans, including the size, type and tenure of housing required to address need in their communities. Scottish Government guidance for local authorities on preparing a Housing Need and Demand Assessment requires them to give due consideration to Specialist Provision requirements including accessible and adapted housing and wheelchair housing amongst others. When evidencing this they should consider a range of households such as older people, disabled people, people with a mental health condition, and the Armed Forces community. The Scottish Government’s Centre for Housing Market analysis (CHMA) will continue to review HNDAs when these are submitted by local authorities to ensure that their HNDA’s can be signed off as being “robust and credible”

In 2023, the Scottish Government reviewed 11 Local Housing Strategies, including ensuring that the needs of the Armed Forces community have been considered. Some examples included: Renfrewshire Council’s commitment to the armed forces community through the joint funding of a Veterans Support Advisor who provides housing support across Renfrewshire and the neighbouring Inverclyde and East Renfrewshire local authority areas; and South Ayrshire Council highlighted that Riverside Scotland completed a development of 63 modular homes in the village of Dundonald and allocated over 13% of these to veteran households. Over the next 5 years, the council plans to carry out a review of accommodation models for veterans to respond to any current gaps in provision.

The Housing Minister has committed to raising the profile of veterans and housing issues at relevant stakeholder meetings.

The Housing Minister met with members of the Veterans Scotland Housing Group in February 2024.

The Housing (Scotland) Bill will be introduced to the Scottish Parliament.

The Housing (Scotland) Bill was introduced to Parliament in March 2024. This Bill will enable the delivery of our commitment for longer-term private sector rent controls; tenants’ rights and other protections; and duties aimed at the prevention of homelessness.

We will work with Veterans Scotland to develop a plan to set out the actions needed to progress the recommendations contained in the Veterans Homelessness Prevention Pathway.

A baselining exercise, led by the Scottish Government, to ascertain progress made since the publication of the veterans’ homelessness prevention pathway is underway. This will look at all 24 recommendations in conjunction with partners including Veterans Scotland and will identify where effective steps have been taken to deliver against the recommendations and where further action is required. This information will also support prioritisation of recommendations in line with available resource to ensure sustainable progress is made going forward. 

While this exercise is live, progress recorded so far includes the ongoing sharing of information through the Veterans Scotland newsletter to ensure consistency and accessibility of messages; delivery of a variety of events and briefing sessions in line with the ‘Informing Scotland’ approach including Veterans Housing Scotland (VHS) Group-led awareness sessions, Housing Options Scotland engaging local authorities, VHS hosting Civic Receptions across Scotland and both VHS and Scottish Veterans Residences speaking at the Housing Options Hubs; and development of a draft approach to a Veterans Housing Alliance which will now be considered more widely. All Veterans Scotland Members are fully compliant with OSCR EDI Policies and that members, such as Scottish Veterans Residences, continue to collect and report accurate data as per the Social Landlord Housing Regulator requirements.

Furthermore, on 26 March the Housing (Scotland) Bill was introduced to the Scottish Parliament. This important price of legislation includes the provisions which constitute the homelessness prevention duties.

We will continue to engage with partners from UK Government, including Defence Medical Services, to ensure that service leavers and their families have access to relevant information in relation to the health care system in Scotland. Through this engagement we will identify areas where we can improve collaboration to address issues associated with transition, which is reserved to the UK Government. Furthermore, we will continue to consider ways in which the Scottish Government can support service leavers and ensure they are informed fully before leaving the Armed Forces.

We have been further developing our relationships with stakeholders across the UKG and DMS. We recently hosted the strategic lead for devolved administrations, a senior officer from DMS, which has strengthened the understanding of the NHS in Scotland, and a follow up visit is planned for later in 2024. Our continued commitment to the work of the UKG and MOD Health Partnership Board enables us to share information and approaches to best support veterans to look after their health when transitioning. Through our regular stakeholder meetings with colleagues in DMS, we are keeping them fully appraised of policy and programme developments e.g. the GP recognition scheme and the Scottish Veterans Treatment Pathway. This contributes to the range of information and support that can be provided to a service leaver.

We will continue to press MOD and UKG colleagues for the effective roll out of Project Cortisone, or equivalent, in Scotland.

While we understand that Project Cortisone, in its current form, has been delayed we have engaged closely with MOD to understand what mitigations are planned and to reinforce the impact of further delays on veterans and their families living in Scotland.

Through our work within the General Practice Recognition Scheme, we will establish processes and provide information on good practice regarding veterans health records held in primary healthcare systems.

Following a successful pilot, the General Practice Armed Forces and Veterans Recognition Scheme was launched in November 2023. The scheme aims to raise awareness among General Practice teams of some of the health challenges that veterans and Armed Forces families face as a result of military service. Easily accessible training materials for use by all members of General Practice staff, both clinical and non-clinical, can be found on Turas, which is NHS Education for Scotland’s single, unified online learning platform. Staff within practices are encouraged to undertake the training to help them identify the Armed Forces and veteran population within our healthcare system, and to ensure this status is highlighted on referrals. This not only helps demonstrate our collective commitment to upholding the Armed Forces Covenant, but also makes a significant contribution to delivering person centred care.

We are continuing to promote the benefits of identifying members of the Armed Forces Community to support the provison of safe, effective, person centred health care. As a minimum, we expect General Practices to apply the agreed codes to patient records and to encourage veterans to self identify, should they wish to do so. The training, included as part of the GP scheme, is intended to give staff groups working in primary care a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of military service on health. Officials are working to promote uptake of the Scheme through speaking to individual practices and Boards, as well as through promotion by Board champions. Expansion of the scheme to cover secondary care is being considered, as is other ways in which the identification of veterans can be progressed.

We will roll out the Armed Forces and Veterans General Practice Recognition Scheme across Scotland and provide appropriate training materials to practices.

The General Practice Armed Forces and Veterans Recognition Scheme is now open to General Practices across Scotland. The scheme aims to raise awareness among General Practice teams of some of the health challenges that veterans and Armed Forces families face as a result of military service. The training materials are hosted on Turas (NHS Scotland’s Digital Training Platform) and are therefore easily accessible. The materials contain 3 modules, giving background information, how the training can be utilised within a practice and clinical case studies. The training has been developed further for colleagues working in Secondary care and the roll out of this, and further promotion of the scheme, has been identified as a priority by the Armed Forces Personnel and Veterans Health Strategic Oversight Group.

We will continue to progress the priorities of the Strategic Oversight Group, including the implementation of the Scottish Veterans Treatment Pathway.

Despite the NHS still facing very challenging times, the Armed Forces Personnel and Veterans Health Implementation Group (IG) has continued to make progress against the priorities assigned by the Strategic Oversight Group (SOG). The following progress has been made against the SOG’s 2023 priorities:

Development of the General Practice Armed Forces and Veterans Recognition Scheme

The scheme was launched by the Veterans Minister on 6 November and we are continuing to promote and encourage take up of the training. Training content for Secondary care has been also been developed. It has been recommended that this continues as a priority.

Identifying Veterans - Progression of the Fife Coding Project

A letter outlining some simple steps that practices can introduce to help identify their veteran population has been issued. This letter has been sent to Practice Leads and NHS Armed Forces Champions have supported the distribution of it within their Board area. We will continue to consider what more can be done to ensure that the work done to identify veterans within a primary care setting follows through to secondary care referrals and bear this work in mind for any future coding/data work.

Establishment of the Scottish Veterans treatment Pathway (SVTP)

We have recently invested £50,000 in the Scottish Veterans Treatment Pathway (SVTP). The creation of the SVTP will support veterans in receiving reviews of injuries and conditions arising as a result of their service. It will fulfil recommendations first made by the Scottish Veterans’ Commissioner in 2018. It will also ensure that veterans in Scotland have access to similar services as their counterparts do in England and Wales, where pathways already exist. This pathway has been conceived and designed over the course of the last two years. NHS Highland has been nominated as the host and co-ordinator. We are currently working with NHS Highland to implement this Pathway by the end of 2024.

Understanding the experience of female and LGBT veterans

The Armed Forces and Veterans Recognition Scheme (for both General Practice and Secondary Care) contains content regarding these cohorts. The veterans mental health and wellbeing pathway has committed to ensuring that the female and LGBT experience will be considered as the pathway develops. While Lord Etherton’s review into LGBT veterans only made two suggestions specifically for Scotland, we will consider the others made as we take forward our priority workstreams. We are committed to ensuring that our work delivers equitable services to the whole Armed forces community, this includes reflecting on the experiences of LGBT and female veterans.

The Strategic Oversight Group met in May 2024 and agreed the following priorities for 2024-25:

• To continue to promote the GP recognition scheme and the training for Secondary care
• Consider what more can be done to improve the identification of veterans throughout healthcare, particularly on referrals from Primary to Secondary Care
• Once finance approved, oversee the implementation of the SVTP (finance has since been approved)
• Develop a Covenant Standards Framework
• Explore how forces families are considered in policy delivery and decision making.

We will establish a new Veterans Mental Health Advisory Group to oversee the development of the Veterans Mental Health & Wellbeing Pathway and the implementation of the principles of the Veterans Mental Health & Wellbeing Action Plan. The Advisory Group will include linkage with peer support services across Scotland.

The Veterans Mental Health Project achieved its initial milestone by implementing a clear governance structure to oversee and progress the Veterans Mental Health & Wellbeing Pathway through the Advisory Group, Stakeholder Network and Operational Working Group. All three groups have now met and agreed terms of reference and membership.

The Veterans Mental Health Advisory Group held its inaugural meeting on Monday 18 March 2024, chaired by Dr Lynne Taylor, the Scottish Government’s Principal Psychology Advisor. The first milestone for the Advisory Group was realised when the group agreed the preferred model of delivery for the Veterans Mental Health & Wellbeing Pathway.

At the Advisory Group meeting on 23 August, broad consensus from the Group was reached that the preferred model is a national framework to be applied locally, overseen by a centralised hub. SG officials are now preparing a paper for discussion at the October meeting which will set out greater details on the delivery and cost of this option.

The Operational Working Group will then consider the operational arrangements and local service provision required to implement the preferred option. Ongoing engagement and consultation to sense check all proposals will take place with the Stakeholder Network, which now has over sixty members from statutory and third sector organisations, as well as those with lived experience.

We will ensure future clinical mental health services for veterans meet the needs of veterans, are accessible to veterans across Scotland and are in line with the new Veterans Mental Health & Wellbeing Pathway.

Veterans Link Scotland is a veterans voice group which was established in 2023 to provide a safe space where veterans can draw on their lived experience to offer guidance and advice to the Scottish Government and influence aspects of service design and delivery. The views and experiences of this group will inform any decision regarding mental health services for veterans in Scotland.

We will continue to Monitor the nature and scale of drug use amongst veterens across Scotland by obtaining data from the new Drug and Alcohol Information System (DAISy).

We are developing a Mental Health and Substance Use Service protocol to ensure better working links between services to deliver person-centred, joined up care for people that use substances. On 27 June 2023 Public Health Scotland published ‘Drug and Alcohol Information System: Overview of Initial Assessments for Specialist Drug and Alcohol Treatment 2021/22 and 2022/23’. This is an official statistics release which reported that in 2021/22 3% of people starting treatment for substance use reported having ever served in the armed forces, with a further 3% not wishing to answer. For those that reported serving 40% of veterans reported a length of service between one and four years, and 48% reporting serving five years or more.