Note of meeting held via MS Teams on 20 January 2021.

Chair

Councillor Mark Horsham

Firm Base Group Members Present

• Councillor Davie Cullen, Veterans Champion, North Lanarkshire Council
• Geraldine McCann, Lead Officer for Veterans Issues, South Lanarkshire Council
• Catherine Johnstone, North Lanarkshire Council
• David McAllister and Phil Cole, SSAFA, the Armed Forces Charity
• Lynne Wyllie, Administration Assistant, South Lanarkshire Council
• Eric Foy and June Weir, Skills Development Scotland
• Ashley Calderwood and Bob Reid, Defence Medical Welfare Service (DMWS)
• Audrey Cuthbertson, Armed Services Advice Project (ASAP)
• Emma Gration, Outreach Officer (Scotland) BLESMA
• Frank Caldwell and Kevin Goodwin, Welfare Manager, Veterans UK
• Joan Guild and Jan Gordon, DWP SWS Armed Forces Champion, Kilmarnock VCP
• Carolyne Mitchell, Digital Team Leader, South Lanarkshire Council
• Stuart Roberts, Office of the Lieutenancy
• Shaun Cauvin, Veterans Scotland
• Les Obre, Quality Improvement Officer, Education Resources, South Lanarkshire Council
• Margaret Yeaman, Lanarkshire Veterans First Point
• Louise Brownlie, Lanarkshire Division Armed Services and Veterans, Police Scotland
• Craig Cunningham, Veterans Champion, NHS Lanarkshire
• Gavin Davey OBE, Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund
• Scott Muir, SACRO
• Claire Sally, The Forces Employment Charity

Apologies

• Archie Aitken, Lead Officer for Veterans Issues, North Lanarkshire Council
• Colonel A J Fitzpatrick MBE, Deputy Commander, JMC Scotland HQ 51 Infantry Brigade and HQ
• Captain Alexander Shannon, 52 Support Squadron, 32 Signal Regiment
• Steve Burton, BLESMA 

Chair's opening remarks

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting.
Outcome(s): Position noted.

Note of previous meeting

The minutes of the meeting of the Firm Base held on 23 September 2020 were submitted for approval as a correct record. However, it had been highlighted that Stuart Craig was from Virtual Recruiting and not the Office of the Lieutenancy as stated in the previous minutes. The minutes of the previous meeting would be amended to reflect this.
Outcome(s): Minutes approved, subject to amendment.

Lanarkshire Firm Base Website - Update 

Carolyne Mitchell, South Lanarkshire Council provided an updated on the Lanarkshire Firm Base website. It had been agreed that volunteers from community groups would be invited to view the website and provide feedback, however, due to COVID-19 and the lockdown restrictions this has not been possible. In order to take the website forward Carolyne asked for volunteers from members of the Firm Base to use the website and assess how accessible it would be to the public.

The following members volunteered: 

• Shaun Cauvin
• Phil Cole
• Audrey Cuthbertson 
• Sandy Fitzpatrick 
• Robert Reid 
• Scott Muir 
• Stuart Roberts 

Outcome(s): Position noted. 

Updated from Partners 

June Weir, Skills Development Scotland (SDS) advised the Group that they were now closed again due to the current lockdown restrictions. A new national helpline telephone number had been created for those people that had been made redundant and for others that needed help. The Citizens Advice Bureau had a new CSCS (Construction Skills Certificate Scheme) along with Employability Services. They were running 2 free courses, one for 16 to 24 year olds and the other for Ex-Armed Forces. Information on the courses would be circulated to members for their information. The Chair welcomed Eric Foy, Team Leader (South), Skills Development Scotland to his first meeting of Lanarkshire Firm Base.

Les Obre, Education Resources, South Lanarkshire Council highlighted that staff within Education Resources had been extremely busy during the pandemic supporting young people, vulnerable young people and young people with additional support needs. 

In terms of moving forward with supporting children from armed forces families, Les would be meeting Depute Heads from secondary schools within South Lanarkshire to forward programme training for staff within their establishments to make staff more aware of the aims and needs of armed forces children in their establishments and how best to support them alongside children from the travelling community. It was hoped that this would be rolled out by Easter time and in place for the summer break. This was being piloted in South Lanarkshire.

Shaun Cauvin, Veterans Scotland highlighted that during lockdown, SDS had created a series of webinars for young people. Veterans Scotland and SDS were working together to make these webinars suitable for service users/veterans and he highly recommended members to have a look at the series of webinars on offer.

Audrey Cuthbertson, ASAP advised that the number of new clients contacting them had decreased, however, contact with existing clients had increased as they were requiring more support due to lockdown. Once lockdown eased, ASAP were expecting a high demand from clients that were having problems with benefits, evictions and disability benefits. They were also experiencing difficulty working with people remotely especially those with mental health needs.

Margaret Yeaman, Veterans First Point confirmed that their referrals were down compared to this time last year and that service users coming through were very distressed and struggling with the lockdown restrictions. They had had to adapt with working remotely like everyone else and they had found that remote therapy/video therapy could work well.

Joan Guild, DWP spoke about how they had had to change over the past year and how well working digitally with customers had gone. Their offices had remained opened during the pandemic and vulnerable people were still able to go into the offices and use the services offered to them. DWP had kept in close contact with all partner organisations/armed forces.  During the pandemic, PoppyScotland had joined their MS Teams meetings. At the end of 2019, Joan confirmed that funding had been set aside for all Armed Forces Champions in every district and that funding was still available.

Kevin Goodwin, MOD explained that it had been difficult dealing with claims over the telephone for War Pensions/Armed Forces compensation claims. It was better to speak to the person face-to-face as a lot of the claims could be quite sensitive, eg PTSD.

Stuart Roberts, Office of the Lieutenancy confirmed that activities within the Lieutenancy Office had been very quiet due to the lockdown. However, Stuart and Audrey were part of the Veterans Advisory Pensions Committee (VAPC) for the West of Scotland and they had been in discussion with David Page, VAPC for the East of Scotland. It was agreed that David Page be invited along to the next meeting of Firm Base.

David McAllister and Phil Cole, SSAFA. Phil Cole recently took over the role as Branch Secretary and was welcomed to his first meeting of Firm Base. David confirmed that they had been working entirely remotely over the past year and managed to raise over £260,000 which helped over 211 veterans and service people from 29 to 90 years old. David stated that they were desperately needing more volunteers and this was raised through both North and South Lanarkshire. 7 volunteers had now came forward.

Craig Cunningham, NHSL. The current position within NHS Lanarkshire Inpatient Wards was that there was an increase in COVID-19 patients and that they had had to stand-down all elective surgeries/non-urgent scopes/non-urgent outpatients to free-up clinical staff for them to support inpatient areas and for theatre staff to support intensive care areas.

They had also maintained all Adult and Mental Health Services. NHS Lanarkshire had also seen a 30% increase in referrals for mental health/psychology scenarios. People and the Veterans community were struggling due to the lockdown. Through North and South Lanarkshire Council, NHS Lanarkshire had been able to secure funding for Veterans First Point for the next financial year 2021/2022. The Armed Forces Network had asked Craig to join them to represent Lanarkshire.

NHS Lanarkshire had now concluded their Flu Vaccination programme with an extra 20% of people receiving the vaccination. They were currently rolling out the COVID-19 vaccination and NHS Lanarkshire were advising everyone to be patient. Over 80s would be contacted through their GP surgeries and everyone else would be contacted nationally for their appointments.

Craig gave a brief outline with regards to the Armed Forces Covenant Legislation Survey.

In Lanarkshire, NHS Lanarkshire, had a recognised Veteran’s and Armed Forces Champion – currently Craig Cunningham, who worked closely with the Armed Forces and Veteran’s Champions of both Councils. The Health Board was fully committed to the principles of the Armed Forces Covenant.

As part of Craig’s role, he would receive referrals from individual veterans and/or various Veterans’ support groups who were aware of people in need of assistance such that he could facilitate the appropriate access to the NHS which recognised the needs of the specific individual. This can often be different to the general population as a result of the individual’s military service, e.g. suffering from PTSD. In addition, Craig was also able to link into the various support groups/voluntary organisations when advised of a patient who had difficulties in being able to access services e.g. transport; had needs beyond NHS, e.g. housing and, on occasion where there was someone with a multiplicity of needs, he could arrange for one of the groups to take a lead in being able to seek to coordinate a range of support for the veteran and, where appropriate, their family.

Specifically, in relation to health services, NHS Lanarkshire also provided a service called Veterans First Point – V1P. This service also engaged with peer support workers to provide a bespoke psychological support service for veterans as well as providing an expert resource internally to NHSL which other clinicians were able to engage with/seek support from. It was sadly the case that many of the veterans the NHS was required to support had a range of mental health and sometimes substance misuse issues (often prescribed/over the counter pain medication). As such, having a service which was able to engage directly with the individual and also to support their access into other related services was hugely important and helpful.

Councillor Cullen thanked Craig and gave his re-assurance that if he needed any support that both Councils would be able to provide this.

Louise Brownlie, Police Scotland confirmed that their referral rates from partner agencies had decreased and this was due to range of factors mainly not coming through the Custody Suites as extra protocols had to be put in place due to COVID-19.

Emma Gration, BLESMA advised that they were working as normal with no face-to-face appointments. However, Fares4Free had been able to go out and carry out welfare checks for them throughout Scotland. They had tried to keep in contact with services users once every 7 days and slightly longer for those that did not require as much support.

Gavin Davey, Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund. Since the last meeting they had engaged with Stuart Craig, Employability Services and were able to secure jobs for veterans over the Christmas period and, hopefully, this would continue well into the new year. They had remained open throughout the pandemic and had experienced an increases in numbers. They had been dealing with various enquiries, mainly poverty, different levels of mental health and loneliness and they believed this would continue beyond the pandemic.

Robert Reid, Defence Medical Welfare Services. They were still operating in Wishaw General Hospital and had some access to wards on a case by case basis. They were working closely with 16 veterans and had 9 staff members.

Shaun Cauvin, Veterans Scotland advised that they had experienced the same difficulties as all other partners during the pandemic. They had been working closely with the Scottish Government with regards to the Armed Forces Community Legislation Survey. He recommended members/partners have a look at the Forces and Mind Trust report on Housing for the Armed Forces which was published in December by the University of Stirling. They were also working with the Scottish Government Veterans Homeless Pathway. All the reports/booklets referred to would be circulated to all members/partners following the meeting.

Shaun confirmed that they had been successful in securing funding from the Forces and Mind Trust to further develop an online training programme for local government staff (front line service staff).

Scott Muir, SACRO advised that they had been working remotely since March and expected to be extremely busy once restrictions were lifted.

Scott Muir, Veterans Community Lanarkshire advised that they had been opened when restrictions allowed them to do so. The Veterans Café had been closed since March, however, the Hub remained open with all social distancing measures in place. They had been able to keep in touch with veterans through Zoom, Whatsapp, etc to help with isolation and were able to deliver food parcels through Fares4Free.

Clare Sally, The Forces Employment Charity (West of Scotland) confirmed that they had been busy and over the past year they had managed to get 90 veterans into employment which was a great effort, especially in the middle of a pandemic.

Outcome(s):  

1. That David Page, Veterans Advisory Pensions Committee (VAPC) for the East of Scotland be invited to the next meeting of the Firm Base and;
2. Position noted.

Forward dates of next meeting 

It was agreed that future meetings of Lanarkshire Firm Base be as follows: 

• Wednesday 19 May 2021 at 2pm at North Lanarkshire Council 
• Wednesday 29 September 2021 at 2pm at South Lanarkshire Council 
• Wednesday 19 January 2022 at 2pm at North Lanarkshire Council (TBC) 

Armed Forces Covenant Legislation Survey 

G McCann gave an update on the Armed Forces Covenant Legislation Survey. The survey was due on 21 December 2020. The survey could only be answered from an organisational perspective. There was a requirement to view the Guidance that would sit behind the Act. The information from the survey would be used as a draft Guidance and this would be sent out again for a full consultation. This survey was based UK-wide and did not focus on Scottish legislation.

It had been due to be put before the UK Parliament by December 2020. However, there was a briefing published on 8 December 2020 in the House of Commons Library. The Government intended to update the Armed Forces Act which should have expired in 2020, however, this has been extended to 2021 due to the pandemic.

Councillor Cullen, North Lanarkshire Council highlighted that they had asked for an extension to the survey, however, this had now been returned and they were now waiting to see the outcomes.

Outcome(s): Position noted. 

Any other competent business 

The PoppyScotland Manifesto 2021 had been circulated and members were encouraged to have a look at the Manifesto.

It was also agreed that a directory of all members/partners details be created and circulated to all members/partners for their records. Members were asked to email Lynne Wyllie with their most up-to-date contact details and this would be circulated in due course.

Phil Cole, SSAFA, the Armed Forces Charity raised an issue that they had with a client and was seeking guidance, help or support from other partners. Several partners volunteered to help Phil. 

Outcome(s): Position noted.