SAC0048
Written evidence submitted by Mrs Stevenson
Submission of evidence to the Defence Sub-Committee’s Call for Evidence
FAO of Robert Courts MP (Chair) and Committee members:
Background to individual submitting the evidence:
I am the wife of a serving Army Officer (Captain). My husband has been in the Army since 2015 (A soldier initially and then Commissioned in 2020). I work full time as a solicitor, having qualified in 2018. We married in 2022. My husband has been posted to Edinburgh since 2021. Prior to that, he was posted to Colchester and whilst he spent a year at Sandhurst in 2020, I moved to be closer to my family in Bedfordshire. As we were not married, we were not entitled to Service Family Accommodation (“SFA”). When posted to Edinburgh, we were not entitled to SFA but were offered Surplus housing, which is where we live currently. This is our first military house, we had to privately rent 2016 - 2021. We currently live in a 3-bedroom military house, but under the new model we would be entitled to a 2-bedroom property (which could be a flat).
The reason I have decided to submit evidence to the Sub-Committee relates to the New Accommodation Model (“NAM”) and the serious concerns I have about it. I have attended one of the Roadshow presentations via Teams which were held to answer questions about the NAM and was thoroughly frustrated and frankly, horrified and angered by the proposals and responses given.
I set out my evidence (as well as a large number of questions which remain unanswered) under a series of headings below.
Preliminary points
- It has been confirmed that following the Future Accommodation Model (“FAM”) pilot, the NAM is going to be introduced in less than 6 months. There is no finalised policy explaining how the NAM is going to work (other than a very broad-brush overview) and DIO do not have answers to even the basic of questions. It is slap-dash and has clearly not been thought through or proposed by military personnel who live in SFA. How many individuals involved in the policy design and decision making of the NAM have served in the military and have ever lived in SFA? I suspect very few.
- I would like to make clear that I fully recognise the SFA provided to Soldiers is, on the whole, inadequate. However, the resolution is not to reduce the quality and availability of Officer’s housing, but rather to invest and improve the stock for Soldiers.
- There is an intention to remove the hierarchical structure amongst living accommodation by mixing ranks and base accommodation on the number of children a family has. This will not work. The Army is built on hierarchy (whether you agree with that or not).
- It has been suggested the NAM is going to cost more than the existing model. I remain unconvinced. Where is the financial breakdown of where this money is being spent? I fully expect the majority is going to be spent on the implementation of this policy. Once NAM has been implemented it is going to cost DIO far less than currently as the purpose of it is to encourage people out of SFA to buy their own homes or privately rent, leaving DIO to sell even more of the existing housing stock to the private market. The money being spent on implementing this policy, in my view, would be far better spent building better houses for Soldiers and ensuring the proper maintenance of the existing housing stock.
The FAM Pilot
- This was an opt-in pilot. The people who would benefit from the scheme would have selected it; the people who would be disadvantaged would have opted to stay in the existing SFA model. The people who will be disadvantaged from this policy is Officers. It is therefore completely inappropriate to rely on the FAM pilot to demonstrate the success of the model. The pilot was littered with serious flaws which have failed to be taken into consideration.
- No figures have been produced as to how many Officers selected to take part in the pilot in circumstances where they would be disadvantaged.
- No specific figures have been provided of the number of incidents arising as a result of Soldiers living on the same street as their chain of command.
- No specific figures have been provided as to the number of Officers and Soldiers who were surveyed as part of the FAM.
The Offer
- This is a significant decrease in the Offer to Army Officers. At present, an Army Officer and his family, even at the lowest rank, would be housed in a 3-bedroom house. As far as I am aware, there are no Officer Housing stock of 2-bedroom properties.
- Significantly more service personnel are going to be entitled to 2-bedroom properties, rather than a 3-bedroom house. Does DIO have sufficient stock of 2-bedroom properties to account for the sharp increase of people entitled to only a 2-bedroom property? Will this force people to pay more to take over-entitlement or into the private rental market? If there is not enough in stock, has an assessment been undertaken as to whether there are sufficient 2-bedroom houses in the private rental market to cover the surplus?
- Take an example, an Army Officer and his family who have dedicated their lives to the Officer’s service for 20 years. Once his children turn 18 and are no longer in full time education, the family is now going to only be entitled to a 2-bedroom house. For the sacrifices that family has made this seems completely unfair and will only encourage the Officer to leave the Army. It does not consider that 18-year-old cannot afford to move out anymore.
- The Army is simply encouraging service personnel to have more children to be entitled to a larger sized property.
- There is size difference between the Soldier houses and Officer houses, despite having the same number of bedrooms. Has any research been conducted into whether Soldiers who are on a far lower income than Officers, will be able to afford the larger costs (for example, gas and electric) associated with living in a larger house?
- Has any research been undertaken regarding the inevitable outflow of Army Officers leaving the Army as a result of the reduction in the Offer? Army Officers could get paid significantly more outside of the Army, in a stable location where they can buy a house suitable for their needs; this reduction is encouraging them to leave
The intention to make NAM more like civilian life
- This will not work for the very simple reason that military families do not live a civilian life. Due to the nature of the hierarchy of the Army, the families of Soldiers and Officers are unlikely to mix (Soldiers will not want to socialise and live next door to their bosses) and encouraging more people into privately rented accommodation will decimate the Patch (SFA housing estate where military families live) life for families. It could also involve families on the Patch in work disciplinary issues. In civilian life, one would (understandably) not want to socialise or live next to their boss.
- DIO is encouraging service personnel to buy a property. This is not feasible for Officers. Has it been taken into account that Officer’s postings are for 18-24 months and, depending on the regiment, are unlikely to be in a same location. It is not possible (logistically or financially) for Officers to buy a house every time they have a new posting, and then sell it again when they are posted. If DIO is intent on introducing this policy, Officer’s postings need to be extended.
- In civilian life, families decide to live in a location for reasons including being close to family and location of jobs. In today’s society most households have 2 incomes. Yet, in military life, absolutely no consideration is given to the spouse. A large number of military spouses work and have managed to find roles/careers that are flexible enough to allow them to change locations, they get a new job every time they move, or they own their own business. Spousal work has been greatly assisted by the ability to work from home. On moving to Edinburgh in 2021 I continued remained employed by my employer in London working from home. I needed a room to be able to continue my career, despite moving to Scotland for my husband’s job – this is what we use our 3rd bedroom for. The NAM fails to take into account the needs of spouse’s work.
- In addition to paragraph 18 above, a number of Officer’s roles (especially those at Army HQ) involve an element of home working. Those in certain jobs are also expected to ‘host’ colleagues at their homes. Again, the NAM fails to take into consideration any needs of the Officer’s job.
- No consideration is given to the need to store military kit. SFA does not permit use of lofts, and there is extremely limited storage on camps. All of the military equipment a service person acquires during his/her career needs to be stored at home.
- Finally, many military families are posted to locations far away from home. Having a spare bedroom is necessary for us to be able to have our family and friends to stay and provide childcare when the service person is away. This is not a ‘nice to have’ this is a wellbeing issue for military families who are already sacrificing so much for the military.
Opportunity to privately rent
- The Patch is an absolute lifeline for military families and is an integral part of military life, especially when families move hundreds of miles away from home. For example, in 2022 my husband was away for 9 months on various exercises, running an NCO Cadre and Op Interflex. In 2023 my husband has been away for 7 months (Training Officer’s Course, JOTAC, exercises in Catterick and France, Op Interflex). My family live 300 miles away. I currently live on a street with people at similar life stages, who are all going through similar experiences and understand the difficulties of being a military spouse and provide that much needed support. Encouraging people to privately rent is going to decimate that.
- The NAM is being introduced at a time where there are already significant issues in the private rental market. Private rental properties are in shortage pushing up prices and, in some areas, these increase on a monthly basis. DIO intend to ‘regularly’ review rental prices but this will inevitably not be fast enough to keep up with the increase.
- How will adding more families to the already struggling private rental market, affect the sector? It is common sense that this will just increase the private housing shortage and increase prices further.
- The private rental market is not always suitable for service personnel (hence why SFA is available). Lots of service personnel have pets and as mentioned above, lots of service personnel move around the country. It is a matter of common sense that a private landlord presented with two offers; one from a local couple who have secure jobs in the area, without pets and no intention to move away; vs. a military family with a pet who is due to be posted again in 18 months, will select the non-miliary couple. Why is the NAM policy relying on proposed tougher private rental laws on landlords which haven’t even been introduced yet?
In summary, the NAM is disaster waiting to happen. It fails to address the actual issues being faced in SFA (such as not enough stock, and the appalling maintenance). It will result in an outpouring of Officers leaving the Army and will decimate life for families (both Soldiers and Officers) living on the Patch. DIO knows an unhappy family life causes unnecessary additional stress for the service person.
I would urge the Sub-Committee to call a halt to the introduction of the NAM whilst the policy is incomplete, is based on distorted evidence and fails to take into consideration the real issues of the model. DIO should instead invest the money into improving Soldier accommodation, increasing numbers of Soldier and Officer accommodation and resolving the significant issues with the maintenance contracts of those private SFA maintenance companies.
29 October 2023