AGENCY URGES VETERANS TO HAVE THEIR SAY ON SUPPORT SERVICES

The Service Personnel and Veterans Agency (SPVA) is appealing to veterans to have their say about the services it delivers. The Agency?s Veterans Customer Satisfaction Survey is launched online, with a hard copy sent to over 7,000 veterans, from 9 January 2012.

SPVA, part of the Ministry of Defence, provides vital support services for the Armed Forces and the veterans community. These include pensions and compensation for injury/disablement or death due to Service, Armed Forces occupational pensions, the regional Veterans Welfare Service, the Veterans-UK helpline and the issue of all medals for Service dating back to WWII. SPVA is looking for feedback from those who have contacted the Agency or used its services during the past year, to find out what is working well and what could be improved in the future.

Jon Parkin, Head of Veterans Services for SPVA said:

?We always try to provide an excellent standard of service to our veterans customers and engaging with the veterans community is very important to us. This survey will really help us see what veterans actually think of our service, both good and bad, with all feedback being used to improve how we do things in the future. I?d encourage anyone who has contacted us, or used our services in the last year, to complete our short questionnaire and tell us their views?.

The survey is entirely anonymous and no-one will be contacted by phone or sent mailings as a result of completing it. The survey is accessed by visiting www.veterans-uk.info and following the link to the ?Veterans Customer Satisfaction Survey?. For a printed copy of the survey, call 02392 702382. The survey closes on 29 February 2012.

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Notes to Editors:

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As part of SPVA?s Social Media programme, a new podcast has been released to encourage completion of the survey and to provide more information about it. Presenter Joanne Lowe interviews SPVA?s Head of Veterans Services, Jon Parkin, about why the survey is so important and how veterans can complete it. The podcast can be downloaded from the Veterans-UK website at http://www.veterans-uk.info/pod.html

The SPVA?s Veterans Customer Satisfaction Survey is a simple ?tick box? style survey that can be completed online or via a printed copy returned by freepost. It has a maximum of 30 questions but customers complete only those questions relevant to the contact they have had with SPVA, so for many it will be shorter. Additional space is provided for free-text comments at the end of the form and the whole survey process should take only a few minutes. All completed questionnaires will be analysed fully by SPVA to see what is going well and where services can be improved. All questionnaires are anonymous and no contact details are requested.
The Service Personnel and Veterans Agency is part of the Ministry of Defence and provides essential support functions to the Armed Forces and veterans communities. These include Forces pay and HR, issue of all medals, casualty repatriation and compassionate services, pensions, injury/bereavement compensation and veterans welfare support.

SPVA podcasts and videos are available on the SPVA Social Media Hub that can be accessed via the Veterans-UK website - http://www.veterans-uk.info/social_media.html

For Further Information

Please contact David Johnson, Service Personnel and Veterans Agency, on 01253 333041, mobile 07717 882014.