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‘The Nation’s Commitment’ Benefits

“The Nation’s Commitment: Cross-Government Support to our Armed Forces, their Families and Veterans” report was presented to Parliament in July 2008 by the Secretary of State for Defence and the Minister of State for the Armed Forces.
It lists a range of proposals that the government is planning to introduce in the near future. However, there are is a wide range of time scales for the introduction of the measures so we have summarised some of the benefits here until there are defined time scales for the proposals.

Much of the report covers issues that may be associated with either injury through working in the Armed Forces, or complications arising from the military lifestyle where personnel may move around the UK or the world and potentially miss out on places on NHS waiting lists etc.

We will be providing a detailed analysis of these side issues in the near future.

You can read the full report here. To give credit to the writers it may be a long report but it is well structured and is comparatively easy to read.

Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) Review – The upfront lump sum payment for injury under the AFCS will be doubled for the most serious injuries, such as loss of a limb or the most severe burns. All recipients from the scheme will have their payments increased by between 10 and 100% according to their injuries. There are also a number of improvements around schemes to help injured personnel adapt to civilian life.

Affordable homes – There will be a £20m pilot scheme to promote Service personnel home ownership in 2009 to ‘maximise the number of servicemen and women who can get on the housing ladder’. There are also moves to extend Key Worker status to Service leavers so they can access help to buy affordable homes 12 months after discharge.

Education and training for Service Leavers – All Service leavers who have served for over six years will be able to take either A-levels (or equivalent) or a degree without having to pay tuition fees.

State boarding schools in England – In addition to the Continuity of Education Allowance (worth up to £15,333 tax free per year) the government has frozen and considering abolishing it altogether after the SDSR review in 2010.

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