Memorandum from the Soldier, Sailors,
Airmen and Families Association Forces Help (SSAFA FH)
REFERENCE
A. Defence Committee Press Release dated
7 February 2008.
B. Ministry of Defence
Annual Reports and Accounts 2006-07 (fifth report of Session 2007-08,
HC 61).
SSAFA Forces Help (SSAFA FH) have read the references
with interest. Noting our expertise in and specialised knowledge
of personal support to service personnel and families under its
Royal Charter have not so far been consulted by MoD in the specific
matters of recruitment and retention, we are pleased to share
our observations with HCDC.
SSAFA Forces Help has experienced a significant
rise in the number of cases involving emotional and relationship
problems arising from the increased intensity and number of operational
deployments over recent years. It must be emphasised that not
only spouses are affected but also other individuals closely involved
with serving personnel—partners, children, parents and grandparents.
Although housing, education, healthcare in the UK and access to
benefits are high on the list of service family concerns, and
funding and or access to improvements in these areas would improve
morale, we note that underlying emotional problems that are often
hard to identify are sapping community morale overall. This also
has an adverse effect on public perception which could discourage
recruitment.
The turbulence associated with a highly mobile
lifestyle for a relatively young population compared with other
sectors in the UK, (and this is particularly the case for the
Army), places heavy demands on both serving personnel and their
families. Frequent moves and associated disruption to education
and healthcare, accompanied by poor accommodation, all place the
serving community under pressures and stress, which are exacerbated
by the frequency of operational deployment.
SSAFA FH's network of professional social workers,
health staff and community volunteers work with and live alongside
the serving communities in the UK and overseas. Through this network,
SSAFA FH is able to offer professional relationship/emotional
support as well as practical befriending assistance by its volunteers.
It is their experience that the continued demands on the MoD budget
are placing the welfare infrastructure under such pressure that
official agencies are now turning to charitable and other agencies
to meet unmet needs.
In the particular and high-profile case of wounded
service people, it is clear that the co-ordination of welfare
support for both patients and families as the former progress
along the patient pathway to recovery needs to be clarified, particularly
in relation to boundaries between the many agencies involved.
MoD is reviewing the patient pathway but SSAFA FH through its
network of professionals and volunteers is aware of cases where
both patient and those close to them would still have benefited
from more timely, integrated and proactive support. It is not
practically possible or always appropriate for MoD to do all of
this itself.
While the number of those seriously affected
is quite small compared with other welfare cases, the high profile
and publicity that shortfalls in MoD-provided welfare support
have attracted could have a potential impact on the morale of
not only the serving community but also of their wider families,
with potential impact on both retention and attracting new recruits.
For this reason, at the request of Secretary of State for Defence,
SSAFA FH is forming a working group to set up support for the
parents of wounded serving personnel because current MoD-provided
support mechanisms are unable to reach them.
SSAFA FH is also aware that families of TA and
reservists, who essentially live in the civilian community, have
similar concerns and is exploring ways of supporting this sector
of the serving community through its network of volunteers in
the UK.
The effectiveness of MoD's ability to support
its serving personnel and their families in general—not
just high visibility casualties—is, SSAFA FH suggests, reduced
by the lack of consistency and scale in its overall welfare provision
as well as in its perception by service users. All three Services
provide different models of welfare support which has been accepted
by MoD as being compatible with the different modus operandi of
each in the Armed Forces Overarching Personnel Strategy on the
principles of tolerable variation. Nonetheless, SSAFA FH would
suggest that the current focus on the demands of Service organisational
and Command structure, rather than the needs of the individual
reduces the effective delivery and efficient provision of personal
welfare support to service personnel and their families. It is
SSAFA FH's experience that the confusion that arises from three
different approaches to welfare cases that are often complex and
long-term, requiring a smooth, confidential transfer from one
location to another such that individuals receive seamless support.
There are many reported instances of systemic failure and inconsistent
interpretation of welfare regulations based on well-meaning individual
understanding resulting in hardship.
SSAFA FH accepts that the military Chain of
Command has a Duty of Care to its personnel and their families.
Nonetheless, SSAFA FH has evidence that individual service personnel
and their families may be deterred from taking their concerns
to military welfare providers for fear of damaging career prospects
or not having their personal concerns treated in confidence. Although
it is difficult to adduce direct evidence (although strong anecdotal
experience from the Confidential Support Line) it is intuitively
obvious that perceptions about the provision of personal welfare
support may impact on retention and, indeed, recruitment of service
personnel. It may be argued that the resultant unresolved emotional
and relationship issues will have an impact on these as well as
on operational effectiveness of those who continue in Service.
18 March 2008
| 
