Our Community – Our Covenant - Improving the delivery of local Covenant pledges

Summary: The Forces in Mind Trust and the Local Government Association commissioned Shared Intelligence to carry out research into ways of improving the local delivery of the Armed Forces Covenant. The research, which was supported by the Ministry of Defence, was commissioned in the context of concerns nationally that implementation of the Covenant locally was inconsistent. Our main sources of evidence were: a literature review; surveys of council Chief Executives, council Armed Forces Covenant Champions, stakeholders and members of the Armed Forces Community; “deep dive” research visits to: Cornwall, Glasgow, Gloucestershire, Moray, Oxfordshire, Plymouth, Surrey, Westminster, West Yorkshire, Wigan, Wiltshire and Wrexham. We also had the benefit of interviews with a number of key stakeholders, a discussion with an advisory group and a sense-making event with members of the advisory group and other people with an interest in the delivery of the Covenant.