The Veterans’ Gateway, the first port of call for veterans’ support, has begun a new trial outreach service for those who have served in the armed forces.

Supported by £108,000 of funding from the Ministry of Defence, the Veterans’ Gateway will now proactively call ex-service personnel who have been in contact to ask for support.

Under the new initiative, the Gateway will identify the most vulnerable ex-service personnel who have previously contacted its helpline, and trained call handlers will get in touch to make sure they are receiving the support they need.

Each individual who contacts the helpline will be asked for their consent to receive calls from the Veterans’ Gateway team, who will be able to provide support and advice, and make referrals where necessary.

Veterans will receive calls from the same advisor, and can decide how often they hear from the Gateway, so they are supported in a way that suits their specific needs.

This new proactive posture follows the US Marine Corps veterans service, who make six proactive calls for every one that they receive.

Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said:

The Veterans’ Gateway already makes a huge difference to the ex-forces community, helping thousands of people across the country access the support they need.

I’m delighted we are now able to enhance this service, boosting the support we offer veterans and making sure that no one who has served this country suffers in silence.

Assistant Director of Veterans’ Gateway Mark Collins said:

This funding will allow us to build on our service, offering a more holistic service to the veteran community which will be a positive step.

We will be monitoring the outcome to see how this trial impacts our users but hopefully it’ll mean those most vulnerable will be able to access help from Veterans’ Gateway supporting organisations, on their journey to getting the right help.

Minister for Defence People and Veterans Tobias Ellwood said:

We are committed to making sure everyone who has served knows where to turn in times of hardship, and this new trial will allow us to go one step further.

By maintaining regular contact with any veteran who needs help, we can offer them the support they deserve, as and when they need it.

Available 24 hours a day, the Veterans’ Gateway signposts ex-forces personnel to the wide range of support available to them, including housing and financial advice, career guidance, and medical care from the NHS. Since being set up in 2017, the Veterans’ Gateway has already received over 20,000 calls, advising ex-forces personnel and their families.

The funding for this new trial was announced by the Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson last year, as part of a wider package of support for veterans. This included the creation of the new Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund – a grant programme where charities will be able to apply for funding from the £10 million awarded to the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust to support the mental fitness of ex-service personnel.

A new report into girls’ education in the Commonwealth has highlighted the gap between ambition and reality, calling on leaders from all sectors of society to make this a national development priority and get behind cost-effective investments such as early childhood education.

The Platform for Girls’ Education, co-chaired by the Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, commissioned the report, which assesses the state of girls’ education across the 53 Commonwealth countries.

Many Commonwealth countries have made good progress towards achieving gender parity in education, with girls out-performing boys in some countries. However, girls remain particularly disadvantaged in a large number of countries and there is a compelling case for targeted efforts to support them.

The report, published by Cambridge University, suggests that governments across the world need to target more funding to the early years of education, especially for girls in remote rural areas. It also highlights the need for targeted approaches to help girls overcome the many challenges they face as they reach puberty.

The Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said:

The importance of investing in girls’ education cannot be overstated. Educated girls are a powerful force for building more prosperous, fair and resilient societies based on an “invisible chain” of shared values. Our shared vision of 12 years of quality education for all girls can only be achieved through a much greater collective effort to dismantle the barriers, driven by leaders from all sectors of society.

This first report is a significant step to identifying what actions are needed to ensure disadvantaged girls are supported to stay in school.

Professor Pauline Rose, the author of the report and the Director of the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre at the University of Cambridge said:

The Report presents clear evidence on what works to enhance educational access and learning for marginalised girls. The Platform for Girls’ Education presents a key opportunity to promote political leadership backed up with resources in order to translate this evidence into action at scale.

The Platform for Girls’ Education is a group of 12 leaders with a shared commitment to 12 years of quality education for all girls. Its membership includes government and civil society representatives from Canada, Fiji, Ghana, India, Kenya, Pakistan, Rwanda, Trinidad & Tobago and the UK, as well as heads of leading multilateral agencies (UNESCO, UNICEF, Global Partnership for Education).

Notes to editors:

• Please see the press release with details from the first meeting of the Platform for Girls’ Education
• Please see the full report

Further information

The landmark draft Domestic Abuse Bill has been published today (Monday 21 January), aimed at supporting victims and their families and pursuing offenders. It comes as it is revealed domestic abuse issues cost the country £66 billion a year.

To help tackle the crime, new legislation will:

• introduce the first ever statutory government definition of domestic abuse to specifically include economic abuse and controlling and manipulative non-physical abuse – this will enable everyone, including victims themselves, to understand what constitutes abuse and will encourage more victims to come forward
• establish a Domestic Abuse Commissioner to drive the response to domestic abuse issues
• introduce new Domestic Abuse Protection Notices and Domestic Abuse Protection Orders to further protect victims and place restrictions on the actions of offenders
• prohibit the cross-examination of victims by their abusers in the family courts
• provide automatic eligibility for special measures to support more victims to give evidence in the criminal courts

The Home Office has published a report into the economic and social cost of domestic abuse, which reveals the crime cost England and Wales £66 billion in 2016 to 2017.

According to the research, the vast majority of this cost (£47 billion) was a result of the physical and emotional harm of domestic abuse, however it also includes other factors such as cost to health services (£2.3 billion), police (£1.3 billion) and victim services (£724 million).

Minister for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability, Victoria Atkins said:

I have heard absolutely heartbreaking accounts of victims whose lives have been ripped apart because of physical, emotional or economic abuse they have suffered by someone close to them.

The draft Domestic Abuse Bill recognises the complex nature of these horrific crimes and puts the needs of victims and their families at the forefront.

This government is absolutely committed to shining a light on domestic abuse to ensure this hidden crime does not remain in the shadows.

It is estimated that around two million adults experience domestic abuse each year, affecting almost 6% of all adults. Women are twice as likely to be victims than men.

The draft bill will introduce measures:

• to address coercive control and economic abuse, and how domestic abuse affects children
• to transform the response in the justice system

The bill will also ban the distressing practice of domestic abuse victims being cross-examined by perpetrators in the family courts.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid said:

Domestic abuse shatters lives and tears families apart. It can happen anywhere, to anyone.

Protecting victims, as well as supporting survivors, is at the heart of our strengthened response to this horrific crime.

Our draft Domestic Abuse Bill and wider package of measures, unveiled today, will bolster the protection for victims and will help expose and bring the vile abusers to justice.

Justice Secretary David Gauke said:

Domestic abuse destroys lives and warrants some of the strongest measures at our disposal to deter offenders and protect victims.

That is why we are barring abusers from cross-examining their victims in the family courts – a practice which can cause immense distress and amount to a continuation of abuse – and giving courts greater powers, including new protection orders, to tackle this hideous crime.

By pursuing every option available, to better support victims and bring more offenders to justice, we are driving the change necessary to ensure families never have to endure the pain of domestic abuse in silence.

Between the draft bill and its consultation response, the government is making 120 commitments to tackle domestic abuse. Amongst these are a series of non-legislative measures which include:

• £8 million of Home Office funding to support children affected by domestic abuse
• a new crisis support system for those with no recourse to public funds
• additional funding and capacity building for services for disabled, elderly and LGTB victims
• updated support, training and guidance on economic abuse
• new and additional training for job centre work coaches, police, social workers and probation staff to help them recognise and effectively tackle abuse
• improved support for victims in the family court
• additional £500,000 funding for provisions for male victims

Sandra Horley CBE, Chief Executive of Refuge, said:

Refuge welcomes the draft bill announced by the government today. Refuge staff deal with the human misery of domestic violence every day. The cost to women and children’s lives is devastating. But now the immense cost to the taxpayer has been laid bare, too. Domestic violence is truly everybody’s business.

This bill represents a once in a generation opportunity to address domestic violence; but in order to do so, we must ensure its aspirations are matched by adequate resource. We will continue to work closely with the government to ensure the final bill meets the needs of the women and children we support.

Suzanne Jacob OBE, Chief Executive of SafeLives, said:

We welcome the government’s set of proposals, particularly putting a greater focus on perpetrator accountability, both through the legal system, civil powers, and programmes that seek to change abusive behaviour.

The government estimates today that perpetrators cost the economy £66 billion – more than the cost of alcohol and drug misuse, cigarettes and obesity combined. It affects more than 2 million people every year.

For too long, we’ve expected victims and children to uproot their lives while the perpetrators remain invisible and unchallenged by the system. The new change in approach reflects what hundreds of survivors told SafeLives they wanted – we’re pleased the government is listening.

Katie Ghose, Chief Executive of Women’s Aid, said:

Domestic abuse costs lives and it costs money. It is happening at epidemic levels yet it has been largely hidden behind closed doors. Now is the time to bring it out into the spotlight and address the impact of domestic abuse properly once and for all.

The Domestic Abuse Bill has the potential to create a step change in the national response and this must be backed up with sustainable funding for our life-saving network of specialist support services to make a real difference to survivors’ lives.

We look forward to working with the government, our member services and survivors themselves to make sure survivors have the resources and support they need, as well as address the root causes of domestic abuse so that every woman and child can live free from fear and abuse.

Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs, Director of Surviving Economic Abuse said:

Economic abuse can prevent victims from leaving an abuser and thwart their efforts to rebuild their lives safely – it can even create new risks.

Through committing to ensure that practitioners have access to training and guidance on economic abuse, the government has recognised that physical and economic safety are entwined.

These new measures will help bring economic abuse out of the shadows and will transform responses, ensuring that victim-survivors are able to access the support they so desperately need.

Speedy innovation

Eighteen months from novel idea to working prototype is quick by any standard. And ‘quick’ is not often a term applied to government. However, that is exactly what the Future of Aviation Security Solutions (FASS) programme has achieved. FASS is a cross government collaborative programme with investment of more than £3m from the Department for Transport (DfT) and Home Office for finding and funding new, innovative aviation security capabilities. This month marks the completion of ‘Phase 2’ of the programme, a significant milestone, with eight funded projects showcasing their innovation progress to potential investors, customers and decision makers at a recent event in London.

Working closely with the DfT FASS team, I have had the privilege to drive the programme milestones and support the development of these projects as the Competition Delivery Manager for the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA). Together, we have sought to harness novel aviation security innovation, accelerating defence and security solutions to keep UK airports one step ahead of potential threats.

Developing innovation for airport efficiencies

The FASS programme aims to improve aviation security and, at the same time, decrease passenger and staff inconvenience. For example, one of our funded projects, Sequestim has developed a super-sensitive, walk-through scanner allowing passengers to keep their outer clothes on whilst continuing to move through the scanner. A recent live trial at Cardiff Airport demonstrated the ability of the scanner to substantially increase passenger throughput, which has obvious advantages for passengers in the reduced queuing times at airport security checks.

Another project, Scanna has developed a sensor pad that can detect explosives hidden in shoes, this could mean that, in the near future, passengers won’t need to remove their shoes whilst queuing at security. And it’s not just shiny new technologies we are interested in, we’ve funded the University of Cambridge to look at behavioural change in security staff and educating them to spot non threats and threats using smarter scanning techniques to speed up the process.

I am excited by working at such pace and being creative to find solutions that support the FASS team goals. The Aviation sector is vital for UK industry and tourism and contributes significantly to the economy. With passenger numbers increasing every year, it is more important than ever to employ the latest innovations to improve efficiencies. The bespoke service we offer the FASS team ensures that the ideas that we find and fund, offers world-leading innovations in Aviation Security.

Collaboration

The Showcase event provided the environment for collaboration between innovators, industry, academia and government. Rich discussions took place in the presentations, workshops and during the networking opportunities. The smaller companies benefitting particularly from business development advice, whilst creative solutions were being deliberated by innovative minds from across all sectors. Collaboration and communication is key for the next stage of success and whilst innovation can present risk, it can also bring tremendous rewards. And the reward of ‘passenger safety’ couldn’t be higher.

About Tracey

Tracey worked for 9 years in the manufacturing industry, before moving to the Education sector where she spent 16 years in a variety of schools, roles and responsibilities, including Head of Science and Assistant Head Teacher. She joined DASA as Delivery Manager in August 2018.

The MOD Medals and Records Offices, part of DBS, are to attend the following family history shows during 2020

The Family History Show South West, UWE Bristol, 8 Feb

Family Tree Live, Alexandra Palace, London, 17-18 Apr

The Family History Show York, York Racecourse, 20 Jun

The Genealogy Show, NEC Birmingham, 26 – 27 Jun

The Family History Show London, Kempton Park, 26 Sept

The show will be attended by family historians, societies and genealogical organisations. The MOD stand, will be staffed by a DBS team, with colleagues from the Air Historical Branch and Restore plc.

They will offer:

Live post 1921 service record search facility

The MOD continues to hold all service records where the individual had a discharge date of post 1921, these total around 10 million records, with about 500,000 having seen service in World War 1. An assisted search facility will be offered that will in many cases enable confirmation of whether the MOD holds a record for an individual. This information can then be used to apply for the record at the event, or by using the forms on Gov.uk. To assist the search, some or all the following information is required: surname, initials, date of birth and service number.

Requesting a Service Record

The MOD are planning to offer an online service where requests for the military service record of deceased service personnel can be placed. An online payment of £30 will be taken when the order is placed. The MOD will need sight of the individual’s death certificate if the date of birth is not over 116 years ago ie 1904 or before. For those killed in action, reference to the CWGC database will be accepted as proof of death. So remember to bring your relatives name, date of birth and death certificate! Records will be posted to the requester after the event.

World War 2 RAF casualty packs search facility

RAF casualty packs from World War 2 are being transferred from the MOD to The National Archives. Using the MOD’s archive and cataloguing database, an assisted search facility will enable identification of the pack that may relate to an individual. This information can then be used to either access the pack at The National Archives, or, for those yet to be transferred, apply for details from the pack using the forms on Gov.uk. To assist the search, the following information is required: the name of the individual(s), date of incident and type of aircraft.

Interpretation of service records

If you already have a service record but are unsure what it says or how to interpret it, then DBS experts will be on hand to assist you.

Veterans Badge

If you have previously served in the armed forces and don’t yet have a veterans badge, then you can apply for and, after the required validation has been carried out, be issued with a veterans badge.

The DBS team look forward to seeing you.