Additions to the Legal Duty
Background
The Act that created the Covenant Legal Duty gives the Secretary of State the power to extend, by regulations, the scope of the Duty to include additional organisations and functions. The Legal Duty will only be extended after a thorough evaluation of the evidence, and after consultation with affected organisations and other statutory stakeholders.
The ADD Process
An open and transparent evaluation process has been developed with stakeholders. This is to investigate the evidence as to whether new organisations and functions should be made subject to the Duty. This is known as the process for Assessing Developments to the Duty (the ADD process).
This process ensures that extending the Duty will happen only when there is potential for genuine improvement to Covenant consideration in decision making, and there are no alternative ways of addressing the issue. Therefore, proposed additions to the Legal Duty will be assessed against the following essential criteria:
- It must pertain to an issue of disadvantage caused by the unique obligations of, and sacrifices made by, the Armed Forces. Or, where special provision may be justified by the effects on such people of membership, or former membership, of the Armed Forces, as set out in statute.
- There must be evidence suggesting the issue is systemic, and not an isolated example of an existing policy not being adhered to.
- The issue must relate to a lack of Covenant consideration, and would therefore be mitigated by inclusion in the Duty.
Potential additions will be assessed against the criteria, to enable the Secretary of State to make the final decision.
Outcomes from the ADD Process
All outcomes from assessments into extending the Legal Duty will be published in the Annual Report and on this website.
A review into bringing the UK Government and Devolved Administrations into scope of the Legal Duty was conducted through 2023. A report is provided in the 2023 Covenant Annual Report.
