The strength of the system, as Rob mentioned earlier, is that there are 13 committees. If you don't mind, I'll use my own committee as an example. My own committee is in the northeast of England. Whilst we're connected nationally to everything that's going on and to the support and service that is delivered by Veterans UK, we're also interconnected with the charities that are right within our region and with the local authorities.
The previous questioner was asking questions about support for veterans to stay in their own homes. For example, as a former regimental secretary, Mark Heffron mentioned the regimental system. One of the strengths of the regimental system is that it provides welfare grants and welfare in aid by keeping in contact with the elderly veterans. It does the first-line support, and there are other larger charities—for instance, ABF The Soldiers' Charity, which is the army benevolent fund—that would underwrite larger care or care beyond what a regiment could provide. As a regimental secretary some 15 years ago, for example, we delivered a housing adaptation that cost almost 6,000 pounds by splitting it amongst the charities. That's available, but equally, there's more support available from the local authorities, some of which is statutory and some of which varies by region.
One of the earlier questioners asked about the delivery of mental health care provisions in particular. One of the issues we have—and hopefully the Veterans' Gateway will help with this—is the myriad of both statutory and non-statutory providers, particularly with regard to homelessness or those who are involved with crime. Northumbria University, which is up in my patch, has actually been commissioned centrally to carry out a study about how veterans can better access the support and how the clinical commissioning bodies—that's the bit of the National Health Service that actually buys the service in—can try to ensure that it's buying in the appropriate care at the appropriate level and that veterans are able to access it.
Notwithstanding our being a much smaller country than Canada, frequently the issue is being able to put the person with the need in contact with the people who can actually meet that need.
The Veterans' Gateway is obviously an automated system, but the whole regimental system for the army and RAF Benevolent Fund and the Royal Navy Benevolent Trust, along with some other specialized service charities, fill the rest of that void.