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Walking With The Wounded is a charity providing support and services to veterans who are homeless, unemployed, in police custody, or suffering with mental health issues, with the aim of re-integration into society. Founded in 2010, the charity has provided help to thousands of individuals struggling to find employment after leaving the armed forces, recognising that sustainable and meaningful employment can be the key to independence.

One of Walking With The Wounded’s four key services is its Employment Programme, which focusses specifically on unemployed veterans and has helped an average of 275 individuals per year since inception in March 2014. Advisors work in supported accommodation residences and mental health spaces spread across the UK to deliver services. Walking With The Wounded approached PBE to assess the impact of the programme on veterans and wider society, comparing the benefits to the costs to assess overall value for money. The findings were compared with the public-sector equivalent – the government’s Work Programme – which was officially stopped in 2017.

The report shows that the Employment Programme, while more expensive than the Work Programme, achieves a lower cost per successful outcome as participants are three times more likely to access sustained employment of at least three months. As such, every £1 spent on the programme could deliver £3 in social benefits – a total of £1.8 million against a cost of £596,000. This return was achieved through a reduction in benefits and demand on NHS services, combined with increased tax revenues and earnings.

This study was carried out by Michael Pang and Daniel Lindsay from Hatch Regeneris, and we would like to thank them for their hard work on the report, which is available to download below.

21st November 2018