26 Nov Strengthening support for the Armed Forces community: how the expansion of the Armed Forces Covenant Duty and recent research can drive impact

At Shared Intelligence, we are proud to have developed the Our Community, Our Covenant and Beyond report, produced in collaboration with RAND Europe and Meri Mayhew Consulting. This is the latest in a series of four reports that we have authored or co-authored. Separately, we have also developed the new  Armed Forces Covenant Toolkit (2025). Together, these outputs represent a significant step forward in embedding support for the Armed Forces community (AFC) across public services and local government, and in ensuring that the Covenant’s principles are translated into practical, measurable outcomes.

The Covenant and Duty

The Armed Forces Covenant, has been a cornerstone of the UK’s commitment to the AFC, recognising the sacrifices made by service personnel, veterans and their families, and ensuring they do not face disadvantage as a result of their service. The Armed Forces Covenant Duty, introduced in November 2022, places a statutory duty on certain public bodies to “have due regard” to the principles of the Covenant when delivering services in healthcare, education and housing.

Now, the Duty is evolving further. The Government has formalised its commitment to extend it across all departments and devolved administrations, bringing the Covenant fully into law. Plans are already underway to broaden its scope to include additional policy areas such as social care, employment, welfare and transport, ensuring the Covenant’s principles are embedded more widely across public life.

The Armed Forces Covenant Toolkit (2025)

Our work on the new Covenant Toolkit focused on creating a practical framework for meaningful, sustained change. The Toolkit helps organisations translate Covenant principles into everyday practice, embedding AFC considerations into policy design, service delivery and partnership working. It provides the essential building blocks for effective local authority support, with practical tools, real-world examples and a self-assessment tool. Ultimately, it makes the Covenant actionable and measurable, helping organisations deliver consistent, evidence-based improvements for the AFC.

Our Community, Our Covenant and Beyond

Complementing this, Our Community, Our Covenant and Beyond aimed to understand the evolving environment for Covenant delivery, explore how local and national partners collaborate with statutory authorities, examine regional delivery approaches that mitigate disadvantage and identify how different local models shape implementation and exemplify good practice in supporting the AFC. Alongside the main report, we also produced a separate case study report which did deep dives into five local authority areas to explore what constitutes good practice in different local, regional and sub-regional contexts, and to examine how the Covenant interacts with wider partnership efforts to support the AFC.

Our findings showed that Covenant implementation operates in a dynamic environment, shaped by diverse local government structures and practical factors. Examples of good practice and emerging models include regional coordinators, military champions, delivery centres, local funds, gateway organisations and community hubs, which provide valuable approaches. While progress has been made, challenges remain, including gaps in monitoring, inconsistent implementation, raising awareness among frontline staff, identifying AFC members at first contact, understanding local needs, improving communication and signposting, and strengthening strategic planning. Ultimately, effective delivery relies on strong local and national partnerships, and best practices must be tailored to local contexts. The report outlines practical recommendations for overcoming these barriers.

A unique opportunity for meaningful change

Together, these three outputs offer a powerful resource for public, private and voluntary organisations. The new statutory Duty provides organisations with a clear legal imperative to act, while the Covenant Toolkit supports them to interpret and apply the Covenant and Duty within their local contexts. The findings from Our Community, Our Covenant and Beyond build on this by showing how those actions can be embedded into everyday service delivery.

The expansion of the duty is set to deliver massive benefits for the AFC. By covering more policy areas and public bodies, the expansion of the duty ensures that service-related disadvantages are considered across the full spectrum of public services. It creates a consistent, system-wide approach, meaning veterans and their families can expect equitable access to support regardless of where they live or which service they require. Importantly, this expansion also signals a cultural shift: recognising that the Covenant is not just a moral commitment, but a practical, actionable framework that should underpin everyday public service delivery.

At Shared Intelligence, we see the combination of the expansion of the duty, the Toolkit and the evidence from Our Community, Our Covenant and Beyond as a unique opportunity for local authorities to take meaningful action. By learning from the best practice identified in councils across the country, public bodies can embed the Covenant and ensure that the AFC is supported at every stage of life.

For more information or a discussion on how you can better support the Armed Forces Community, contact lisa.mccance@sharedintelligence.net

Si is a signatory of the Armed Forces Covenant.