As part of a UK Defence Journal series looking at how Scottish public sector organisations support staff with links to the Armed Forces, the Scottish Ambulance Service is the latest body to be examined.
SAS takes a different approach to recording Armed Forces Community staff than some other organisations in this series. Rather than maintaining a central register of veterans, reservists, service leavers or service families, the organisation runs an Armed Forces Network that is deliberately open, welcoming not just those with a direct military connection but anyone with an interest in supporting the community. Staff are not asked to explain why they’ve joined, which reflects a conscious decision to keep the network inclusive rather than gatekept.
That means there is no single headline membership figure to report, but what SAS does hold is something arguably more concrete. The organisation records absence taken under the reason of Reservist Leave, and the figures released cover four calendar years. In 2022, 45 members of staff took a combined 3,300 hours of reservist leave, followed by 38 staff and 2,719 hours in 2023, rising sharply to 51 staff and 4,800 hours in 2024, before settling at 32 staff and 2,156 hours in 2025.
Across the full period, 166 distinct members of staff recorded reservist leave totalling just under 13,000 hours, which gives a genuine sense of the scale of reservist activity running through the organisation year on year. That this data exists and was readily disclosed shows that SAS is tracking reservist engagement in a meaningful way, embedding it within its HR systems rather than leaving it to informal awareness.
The 2024 figures stand out, with both headcount and hours considerably higher than the surrounding years, likely reflecting the nature of reservist commitments varying with operational demand on the military side rather than any change in organisational policy.
What SAS says
In a statement to UK Defence Journal, SAS said:
“At the Scottish Ambulance Service, we are committed to supporting members of the Armed Forces Community. SAS has achieved a Gold Award for the Armed Forces Covenant Employer Recognition Scheme in recognition of this commitment and have a dedicated internal staff network for members of the Armed Forces Community. This includes veterans, reservists, family members of Armed Forces personnel, and anyone with an interest in supporting this community.
“Reservists are offered two weeks paid leave as SAS recognises the benefits that come from having them in our organisation and the valuable training that they receive. In addition to paid leave, our veterans and reservists also give up their time freely to support community engagement and key events, such as Remembrance.”
Two weeks of paid reservist leave sits at the more generous end of what has emerged across this series so far, and the way SAS frames it is worth noting. Presenting reservist support as something the organisation actively gains from, rather than simply accommodates, reflects exactly the kind of employer attitude the Armed Forces Covenant is designed to encourage, and suggests the commitment runs deeper than a policy document.
What the data shows
The absence data is an unusual angle for this series, with most organisations providing staff counts or registration figures instead. SAS cannot offer that, but what it can demonstrate is actual uptake of reservist leave across four years in a way that several other organisations haven’t been able to match. The figures are grounded in real transactional HR data rather than a membership list, and they show consistent, meaningful reservist activity throughout the period, which is itself evidence of an organisation where reservist service is a normal and supported part of working life.
It is worth noting that the distinct staff counts are per year rather than deduplicated across the whole period, so the true number of individuals who have taken reservist leave through SAS at some point since 2022 may differ from the 166 total, with some of the same people likely appearing in multiple years. That doesn’t diminish what the data shows, but it is a useful caveat when reading the figures.
Why this series exists
UK Defence Journal launched Armed Forces at Work in Scotland to examine how public sector organisations support Armed Forces Community staff in practice, drawing on Freedom of Information responses, published policy and organisational comment across around a dozen bodies, from large organisations like NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and Police Scotland to Strathclyde Partnership for Transport and smaller regional authorities.
Veterans, reservists and Armed Forces families are present across Scotland’s public sector workforce, and the support available to them can vary depending on employer and location. Setting out what is in place helps inform discussion, highlight good practice, and provide clarity on how support operates in reality. The series will run over the coming weeks, stay tuned.
