To receive a presentation from the Armed Forces Liaison Officer for Rhondda Cynon Taf and Merthyr Tydfil, including an update on the Veteran Advice Service.
Minutes:
With the aid of a Power Point presentation, the Armed Forces Liaison Officer provided Members with an update on the Veterans Advice Service. He provided background information into the purpose of the Veterans Advice Service detailing it’s aim to treat veterans fairly, raise awareness of the Armed Forces Covenant, provide support and advice for veterans in Rhondda Cynon Taf and work towards the Council maintaining the Gold employer recognition award. He informed Members that as part of the work to contribute to raising awareness all new staff to the Council receive Armed Forces Covenant awareness training which to date has been completed by over 600 staff and there are also public covenant awareness sessions available.
He continued to outline the key support that is essential to enabling the service to provide assistance to veterans and noted the support from Cabinet Members is vital and unique to Rhondda Cynon Taf and he thanked Members for this. Another area of support covered was raising awareness. The Officer praised the good relationship held with the Council’s Press team as a key support in the aim of raising awareness of the service and noted the recent national press coverage which had also had a positive effect. Details were also provided of the newsletter that is produced to raise awareness of the service. He also referenced the support from Customer Care and the use of the CRM system to record and monitor data as a key tool when compiling funding bid applications.
The Officer also outlined the details of the Veterans Groups supported by the service informing Members of the recently formed Taf Ely Veterans Group and the success this had seen so far with numbers attending. Details were also provided of recent projects undertaken by the service including the provision of laptops to aid running the groups and the procurement of 80 tablets following a successful Covenant grant bid with the aim of tackling isolation amongst veterans. Members were informed the tablets, part of the ‘Veterans Connected’ project would be available to hire free of charge.
Members were also informed of recent events that had taken place including a scaled back ceremony to mark Armed Forces Day 2021 including flag raising and a family Forces Fitness day. Also, Merchant Navy Day was marked on 3rd September 2021 which was the first time the flag had been raised for this occasion. The Officer acknowledged the key contribution and sacrifice members of the Merchant Navy had made and informed Members of the intention to continue marking this day going forward.
The Officer also shared with Members the current data held showing that 88% of those who have engaged with the service to date are male with the majority in the age rang 61-70 (80%). He acknowledged that this is an area he is keen to work on engaging with younger veterans. Members also received examples of recent feedback from veterans engaged with the service highlighting the benefits they felt from having a point of contact and place of support.
Lastly, Members were taken through what the next steps are for the service including details of upcoming events including a cinema evening on 5th November and working towards retaining the Gold Employer recognition award. He concluded by sharing the upcoming plan to circulate an Armed Forces survey to help build a database of veterans and capture views to enable the service to provide the support and referrals where necessary.
The Chair thanked the Officer for the comprehensive presentation and thanked him for his work, adding that the feedback received was a testament to the hard work and support provided. It was noted that the newsletter that is produced should be circulated to Members. Members of the Committee praised the work being carried out in supporting veterans in Rhondda Cynon Taf with one Member querying the link between leaving the Armed Forces and being signposted to services such as Veterans Advice. The Armed Forces Liaison Officer outlined the complexities of obtaining such data directly from the Ministry of Defence but confirmed that this is an area of focus and a further aim of the upcoming survey to enable to service to capture relevant data and aim to engage with veterans before crisis point.
Members of the Committee shared personal experiences of friends and family members leaving the Armed Forces and the Chair concluded by emphasising the importance of having community-based services in order to engage at an early stage with veterans requiring support.