Service Personnel and Veterans Agency

The Service Personnel and Veterans Agency (SPVA) was an executive agency of the UK Ministry of Defence. The SPVA provided personnel, pensions, welfare and support services to members of the UK Armed Forces and veterans and their dependents. It was formed on 2 April 2007 by merging the former Armed Forces Personnel Administration Agency (AFPAA) with the Veterans Agency.

The formation of the SPVA led to the provision of a fully integrated set of ‘through life’ personnel services to the serving and veterans community - where a single contact with the Agency granted access to customer information and advice on pay, pensions, compensation payments, records of service and medal entitlement.

The responsibility for all pension provision, whether a War Pension or an Armed Forces pension fell under the direct control of the SPVA, reducing the risk of omitting or duplicating information.

The SPVA operated from four main sites: Glasgow (Kentigern House), Gloucester (Imjin Barracks), Gosport (Centurion Building) and Norcross (Blackpool)

The SPVA's executive agency status was removed on 16 June 2011 in preparation for it to be merged into the Defence Business Services (DBS) organisation.

On 1 April 2014, the SPVA merged with Defence Business Services as part of the Defence Reform. The merger is a direct result of Lord Levene’s Defence Reform report published in 2011, the report recommended ‘the establishment of a single delivery organisation – Defence Business Services (DBS) – to deliver transactional and other services in the fields of civilian HR, finance, some elements of information and commercial services, and, at a later date in the transition, security vetting and military HR.’

DBS is now one of three ‘Shared Services Centres’ across government and one of the largest in Europe.

The merger between the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency and DBS will not affect services to veterans. SPVA services for veterans – Armed Forces pensions, compensation schemes, helplines and welfare support – will continue under the ‘Veterans UK’ name. However, the SPVA logo will now be phased out and replaced with the Ministry of Defence Logo.

Phone contacts for veterans services remain unchanged; the Veterans UK Helpline number is 0808 1914 2 18 and the JPAC number is 0800 085 3600. http://www.veterans-uk.info/merger_announcement_april.html

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