To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of compensation provision through Veterans UK, War Pensions and AFCS.
Answered on
1 February 2022
The Department is committed to ensuring that the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) and War Pension Scheme (WPS) deliver for those who make a claim, and there are mechanisms of assessment and accountability in place to ensure that this is the case. The Central Advisory Committee on Compensation (CAC) provides an on-going opportunity for Armed Forces charities and representatives to discuss all aspects of compensation.
Veterans UK is the public facing name of Veterans Services provided by Defence Business Services (DBS), an enabling organisation of the Ministry of Defence. The disruption caused by the COVID pandemic impacted the ability of DBS to meet targets for the administration of both AFCS and WPS. However, the return to office working in 2021 significantly increased operational capacity and the implementation of a recovery plan has greatly reduced processing times. AFCS processing now meets the 90-day target and WPS is expected to recover the 127-day target in February 2022. Veterans UK has also embarked on a £40 million programme to digitalise its services which will improve customer experience, speed up processing and reduce cost.