OFFICIAL                            [SAC0013]

Written evidence submitted by Pinnacle Group

 

Defence Sub-Committee inquiry into Service Accommodation

 

Introduction

 

Who we are

Pinnacle Group is a community-facing business that delivers, manages and maintains homes, communities and places. In summer 2021 Pinnacle Housing Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Pinnacle Group, was appointed to deliver the National Accommodation Management Services (NAMS) contract on behalf of the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) and, since April 2022, has been responsible for providing accommodation management services to 49,000 Service Family Accommodation (SFA) homes.

 

What we do and how the contracts work

The NAMS contract is one part of DIO’s Future Defence Infrastructure Services (FDIS) Accommodation arrangements. FDIS Accommodation also includes four Regional Accommodation Maintenance Services (RAMS) contracts, of which two are held by VIVO Defence Services and two by Amey Community. It is important for the Committee to note that there is no contractual relationship between the NAMS and RAMS suppliers: the three organisations are separately contracted to the DIO, who are the common client.

 

The NAMS and RAMS contracts only relate to SFA. ‘Service Accommodation’ in its wider sense includes Single Living Accommodation (SLA). SLA is serviced and maintained by DIO’s Built Estate contracts, which form the non-family accommodation part of FDIS. This is distinct from the work undertaken by Pinnacle, and does not form part of the NAMS contract.

 

Pinnacle (NAMS) provides the National Service Centre (NSC), which acts as a single point of contact for service families. Maintenance requests are administered by Pinnacle, which includes establishing the type of work required and its urgency based on a given category. Appointments are then made for DIO’s RAMS contractors, VIVO and Amey, to attend, based on appointment slots they provide to us. Pinnacle is also responsible for the allocation of homes in accordance with DIO policy, carrying out move-in and move-out appointments with families, as well as the management of complaints and compensation requests across all FDIS Accommodation suppliers.

 

What Amey, VIVO and DIO are responsible for

VIVO and Amey’s focus is on the properties themselves. They are responsible for providing repair and maintenance services, undertaking statutory and mandatory checks, and preparing allocated homes for service families.

 

DIO retains responsibility for decisions around property upgrade and investment programmes (with this work typically delivered through the RAMS contracts), as well as acquisition and disposal decisions.

 

The overall situation regarding SFA is well summarised in the recent House of Commons Library briefing note, and we have not repeated that here.[1]

 

Specific questions

 

Q1: What measures have been put in place to resolve the housing maintenance issues, hold service providers to account and ease the cost of living for service families?

 

Maintenance issues relating to SFA have been well publicised. The issues families have experienced, or continue to experience, have often been multi-faceted, and included elements of the below:

 

As described above, primary responsibility for these elements sits with different parties. However, it is incumbent on NAMS, RAMS and DIO to work collaboratively to ensure that, as a whole, FDIS delivers for service families. As the family-facing part of the service, and the administrator of complaints, at Pinnacle we are particularly aware of the frustrations families have experienced and, for our areas of responsibility, have put in place specific measures to improve their experience. These include:

 

 

Suppliers are held to account through a variety of mechanisms:

 

 

Q2: Do the new Future Defence Infrastructure Services (FDIS) contracts for Service Family Accommodation represent value for money and are they operating effectively?

 

As explained above, FDIS Accommodation is made up of three primary suppliers. Pinnacle’s contract has a core value of £144m in total over the initial seven-year period while the RAMS contracts together are valued at a total of £506m, excluding billable works which amount to a further £850m over the period, plus further specific DIO investment expenditure.

 

At the mobilisation of these contracts, there were a number of initial challenges:

 

 

After a challenging start, during which time the National Service Centre underperformed on call and email response times, and maintenance backlogs led to unacceptable conditions for many service families in the winter of 2022, Pinnacle has worked hard to drive up the standard of our services, committing significant additional resources to the contract and drawing on expertise in our wider business to ensure we are operating effectively. As such, we are now performing well against our key performance standards as set out below, exceeding target performance levels consistently.

 

Measure

Acceptable Performance

Target performance

Current performance

(Apr 23 – Jun 23)

Call abandon rate (%) - % of callers hanging up after waiting 90 seconds in a queue

7%

5%

0.2%

Call answering time – average time it takes our call handlers to answer a call(secs)

120 secs

90 secs

11 secs

NSC email response time (% responded to within five days)

94%

99%

100%

Pre Move Out appointments taking place at least one month prior to Move Out (%)

90%

95%

100%

 

While the key elements of the NAMS service are now being delivered effectively as a result of these improvements, it remains clear that FDIS Accommodation as a whole is not delivering high quality outcomes to families. While call answer times are significantly better than the DIO target, families are still having to call multiple times for their underlying issues to be resolved (typically a maintenance service request). There is clearly more work for DIO and its suppliers to do to improve the situation for families.

 

Q3: What is the MOD doing and what more could they do to rebuild trust in service accommodation?

 

Trust in the provision of service family accommodation will only be rebuilt when the basics are being delivered consistently well and the over-riding promises of the FDIS programme are routinely met. Families need to experience that the service accommodation offer is working for them – they cannot simply be told that it is. As FDIS allocates responsibilities between various contractors and DIO, this will only be achieved when all parts are performing strongly. Families’ perceptions are likely to be driven by the weakest link, despite there being areas of good or excellent practice.

 

To rebuild trust:

 

We are also keen to explore with stakeholders – in particular the family federations – whether there are other actions, outside of the immediate scope of the contracts, that the FDIS parties could take to improve families' experiences.

 

One example we have recently introduced relates to the provision of compensation to families in some circumstances. Historically, compensation has been paid to families in the form of high street vouchers, including the reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses (this is an issue that has previously been highlighted by the Public Accounts Committee).[2] From Spring 2023, we now administer a cash-based scheme covering heating loss, loss of cooking facilities and expenses incurred when a repair issue necessitates a hotel stay.

 

 

Q6: What are the benefits and drawbacks of the Future Accommodation Model? How successful was the Future Accommodation Model pilot and what should the MOD take forward to include in the new accommodation offer?

 

The Future Accommodation Model (FAMnow known as the New Accommodation Offer) represents a significant change in entitlement for subsidised family accommodation and the basis on which it is provided. While Pinnacle has only operated the contracts for a year, it is clear to us that expanding entitlement to subsidised accommodation could have a significant positive impact on those groups that have traditionally been excluded, such as those who share parenting responsibilities and whose children spend at least 80 nights a year with them, as well as those in long term relationships who are not married or in a civil partnership.

 

From an estate management perspective, the key benefits of FAM are:

 

Potential drawbacks include:

 

1 September 2023

 

 

 OFFICIAL


[1] https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9716/CBP-9716.pdf

 

[2] https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmpubacc/2136/2136.pdf