Tri-Service
New Armed Forces Covenant Website Launched
A new website focussing on the Armed Forces Covenant website has been launched.
It's aiming to help service personnel and all other people who benefit from the covenant to find the information they need in plain English and online.
Serving personnel, service leavers, veterans and their families will all be able to access support from the Armed Forces Covenant via the new website.
It's a central point of information about the covenant, and uses real life examples to show what it does and the practical support available.
It's also hoped the new website will make it easier for businesses, local authorities and community organisations to find out how, and why, they can sign the Armed Forces Covenant.
As signatories, they make a pledge of support that could be providing products and services tailored to service life, being a forces-friendly employer of reservists, service leavers and military spouses, or both.
Every central government department, every local authority in mainland Great Britain, and more than 900 businesses and organisations of all sizes have now signed the covenant.
The Armed Forces Covenant is a pledge to those who serve or have served, and their families, that they should be treated with fairness and respect by the communities, economy and society they serve.
This means recognising that service creates particular challenges for our personnel, past and present, and their families that aren’t faced by the rest of the population.
This could be the challenge of maintaining a UK credit rating when military personnel and their families are posted overseas, the impact on children’s education of frequent relocation, getting support to transition into a new career, or help getting onto the property ladder.
One example of a way the Armed Forces Covenant has been able to help service personnel is through the Forces Help to Buy scheme.
Since its launch in April 2014, it's helped more than 6,642 personnel to buy homes, with almost 2,000 more applicants approved and awaiting completion of purchases.
Loans to service personnel, meanwhile, have reached the £100m mark, with the scheme proving most popular with those between the ages of 20 and 39, with the vast majority of recipients non-officers.
Regular personnel can borrow up to 50% of their salary (capped at £25,000), interest free, to buy their first home, extend their current one or move to another property on assignment or as their needs change.
The loan can be used towards a deposit and other costs such as solicitor’s and estate agent’s fees.
Chief Petty Officer Tristan Lawtey received a loan in January to enable him and his wife to purchase a home. The 35-year-old said:
"We would have struggled to get a deposit together for our own home without the scheme, and with the repayments coming straight out of our salaries it makes it really easy."
"The whole process was very easy to complete. All the way through the Forces Help to Buy team were really supportive, answering questions, offering advice and offering advice on how to move the application forward.
"Me and my wife are now in the process of re-doing the kitchen and one of the bedrooms for a home office - my wife is a self-employed architectural designer and works from home.
"The plan is to stay in the house until I transition out of the Royal Navy in six and a half years, and then we will assess where we want to live after that. Owning our home is going to make a real difference."
Meanwhile Minister for Defence Personnel & Veterans, Mark Lancaster, said:
"I am delighted that the Forces Help to Buy scheme is enabling our Service personnel and their families to have greater flexibility in where and how they live, by allowing them to buy their own homes.
"Stories like those of CPO Lawtey show how easy it is for service personnel to access the scheme and I hope that many more will consider it as a good option for themselves and their families."
You can find out more about the scheme and other ways the covenant could help you via the new website - just click here.
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