SAC0041
Written evidence submitted anonymously
Maintenance failures seem to be deliberately broken into pieces to avoid accountability. Whilst the occupier must use Pinnacle to submit repair, the work is then completed by another contractor such as VIVO. Pinnacle then hide failures behind VIVO whilst VIVO fail to communicate. Just in the past month I have had 3 appointments which were not attended which VIVO declined to accept responsibility for. This is not an isolated incident and has cost countless hours of my time and those I work with. I do not feel as though there are sufficiently accessible options for occupiers of service housing to feel heard by DIO as the system is designed to allow Pinnacle to mask the real failures behind transference of blame.
My experience of PFI service accommodation was outstanding, maintenance was delivered in small time windows and communicated well. They were also proactive in raising preventative maintenance jobs and conducting work which was not scheduled. This was at Shrivenham.
I often feel as though service accommodation is only viewed in a short term way. Many choices on service provision have long lasting impacts on service family life. Poorly maintained properties degrade the offer and encourage early departure from the service. The short time period of assignments also leads to poor behaviours from occupants, allowing gardens to overgrow and small jobs to become large issues. An increase in occupancy time, through either longer assignments or increased number of assignments within one duty station would increase occupant engagement and mitigate some of these issues. It often appears that often Defence would be better placed to rebuild houses in a slightly smaller footprint to enable greater occupancy near our places of work along with enhancing the quality of available housing stock.
I am not worried about the modernity of my property, beyond its energy efficiency. I am mainly interested in the proximity to work, schools and good quality internet connections. The extra size is welcome, especially when we are asked to deploy either formally on operations or as part of a unit. The Future Accommodation Model has many positive elements, but it must reflect the ‘need’ of a service person correctly and support the disruptive nature of military life. Anecdotally those opting to rent in FAM sites have struggled to find places to rent and have had to invest their own time into finding suitable accommodation. The disruption of moving from service family accommodation to another service family accommodation is already great when the property finding is done for you. Arranging utilities, understanding local amenities and council provision takes more than the 5 days given for relocating. To add extra time and stress in trying to find accommodation, often in an area not of my choosing would only increase the pressure to leave the military.
24 October 2023