SAC0053

Written evidence submitted by Mrs Laura Ross

I have been married to my partner since 2014. He has served as an Officer in the British Army since 2009. Since our marriage we have lived in 4 different SFA including a posting overseas to Cyprus. We have also lived in our own property but felt very isolated from the military community when we started a family. We took the opportunity to move back into SFA when my partner received an overseas posting and have remained in SFA since 2020. We now have two young children and patch life is a wonderful way to raise a young family. Given that I have only had experience of being married to an Army Officer I will only refer to these experiences and not the other two services.

My evidence is mainly in relation to Qu 6 What are the benefits and drawbacks to the Future Accommodation Model? How successful was the FAM pilot and what should the MOD include in the New Accommodation Offer (NAO).

I have spent time looking at the details of the FAM pilot at Aldershot and I would like to raise my concerns that it was not an effective study and that there should be some serious reconsideration of its planned implementation in March 2024. There were a total of 3,583 Officers and OR at Aldershot and only 28 in total participated in the study. That equates to 0.8% of the large Aldershot Garrison willing to participate. Is the fact that only 0.8% participated at Aldershot evidence enough that it was not a better solution to housing in the Armed Forces? There are approximately 76,000 Full Time SP in the Army and 28 people’s experiences during the FAM at Aldershot (along with very small numbers at the Naval and RAF test sites) are being used to change a key part of the Terms and Conditions of Service. This is less than 0.04% of the British Army’s SP views being used to change crucial policy.

There is little breakdown of the demographics of those who participated in the FAM at Aldershot. I am sure that those whose offer was to be reduced due to a new “needs based” model would simply opt out of the study. Is there any feedback that was collected of why over 99% chose not to participate in the model at Aldershot? With the number of participants so very low it is hard to think that the study was able to cover all the different types of family set ups, for example this may simply have been from families that had lived in the area before joining the Army and were returning ‘home’. Is the committee able to investigate further the motivating factoring for those who did participate?

I would welcome these drastic changes to accommodation had the pilot been one that replicated what is now due to be rolled out in March 2024. It would then make the qualitative research far more valuable.

During repeated comments on the roadshows made by SP and their families, there were concerns this was an erosion of the offer. The common response from the roadshow team was one that it was not an erosion of the offer. This is almost irrelevant as the fact is families are perceiving this as an erosion of the offer. This perception will not change, and it will affect how long their service career is tenable for.

The 52nd AFPRB was published earlier this year. When making recommendations for pay they noted that the key points driving them was the following:

The NAO is not going to improve morale or be broadly consistent with offers made to other workforces. In addition to this, the Army has to compete to recruit personnel with other top employers across the UK that offer extremely financially competitive packages. It is difficult for the Army to match salaries that are offered by these top companies, but one thing that certainly incentivised my partner and many of his peers was the housing, pension and opportunity to use the Continuing Education Allowance (CEA) provision to mitigate some of the instability to our children’s education. I find it hard to believe future and current personnel will be incentivised to stay if the housing offer will be reduced as is proposed from March 2024.

There will be a three-year minimum transition period to protect those on the old “rank based” allocation. I have some further concerns about this. Will the MOD take into consideration, that if most SP choose to have their accommodation allocated on the old model, is this strong evidence that this element of the NAO is not wanted? My concern is that high numbers will opt to have their housing allocated on this old model, which will not have a negative effect on retention and SP satisfaction (in the short term), reducing the validity of any data collated on the effectiveness of the NAO (and masking the negative impact under after the transition period).

We are one of the many families that does move every two years and sometimes more frequently (noting the trend of regular moves is more prevalent in Officers). Whilst there is an ability to influence posting locations, we have (like many others) been directed into postings far away from the support network of our family and friends. Under the NAO, we will no longer be guaranteed a spare room to host family and friends, who become ever more critical to our family when the SP is away from home on trawls, courses, exercises, or deployed on operations. (Note: their role demands they are ready to deploy at short notice, regardless of the impact on the family.) I understand if there is availability, we have the option of going one above entitlement, however the pressures on housing stock are already evidence. (There are often lengthy waits to secure SFA when assigned to a new location, and there is little confidence in the flexibility and spare capacity of the housing estate.) This disincentivises my partner to choose jobs far away from the Southwest as it has the potential to isolate the family if there was nowhere for friends and family to stay. (The flipside is also true: more families are being directed into locations the don’t want to live as people aren’t applying for posts where there is known lack of houses.) The design of each SFA house is different and Service families have long been creative about ‘spare’ furniture that doesn’t fit into the new house, but will probably fit in the next one 24 months later. A key issue of reducing the entitlement for rooms is where our four-bedrooms’ worth of furniture would go if only allocated our NAO allocation of three bedrooms. We are not able to use our loft space as part of our License to Occupy and we have yet to have a garage that doesn’t flood or cause damp. Will the MOD pay for storage until my partners career ends, or is this an additional ‘cost’ of serving? 

Community is at the heart of military life, especially families that do choose to move every couple of years to stay as a family unit with the SP.  There is no doubt that changes proposed with the New Accommodation Model will have a negative impact on this community. In life there are natural fraternities (groups with common interests, background, life experiences, etc.), and this NAO will in effect force those who would not normally live together in other parts of society (or other career paths) to live together. The rank structure is in place to run an effective armed force. If this does not correlate into the housing structure, it will inevitably cause issues with maintaining an effective working relationship which is fundamental to the workings of the Armed Forces. For example, my husband has been in command or discipline roles for over half his career. It would not be appropriate for him to live next to a soldier he may have to discipline, and, vice versa, juniors do not wish to live next to seniors.

I chose to give up my career as a successful secondary school teacher to support my partner and move with him regularly so we could maintain a cohesive and mutually supporting family unit. One of the incentives to do this was knowing that as my partner devoted more timed and energy into his career, we would be rewarded with promotion of rank which also came with a larger housing entitlement. Accommodation has always (in our view and many others) been part of the overall package, and this has now been stripped from us. (Whilst sometime perceived as a snobbish argument, those most irate with the loss of entitlement are not officers, but the senior soldiers and Late Entry officers.)

As part of giving up my career as a teacher, I have recently set up my own business at home which requires office space. It is frustrating that this is not being considered as part of the needs of a military family due to the sacrifices I have made for my partners career to be successful. I noted that other partners who had set up businesses so they could move regularly to support their partners military career had queried with the newly formed Accommodation Cell why this was not considered as a “need” to have a spare room as office space. The Accommodation Cell’s response was that the MOD cannot be seen to be funding private business. This is a valid point but then I would like to query the allowances for a second home for MPs? This is taxpayers’ money. Are MPs only claiming for homes that meet their family needs? Are all MPs who claim this allowance able to guarantee that they do no other business except their business as an MP in their second home funded by the taxpayer?

Finally, I want to raise my concerns on relying on the Private Rental Sector, where SFA housing is not available. The impact of patch life must not be underestimated, both in terms of family stability and in protecting operational effectiveness. To house a family away from a patch excludes them from so much community and support which is essential to patch life. I experienced this firsthand when I lived in my own property; I was isolated from the wider support network whilst my husband was deployed on operations. In the last year of living in SFA, we have had numerous community events. These have been a mixture of Garrison- and self-organised by our neighbours, including a Coronation Party, children’s parties and Summer BBQs. Forcing people into private rental means they do not get access to this vital community (especially when they need it most – e.g. when their spouse is away on military commitments). The rental market is fiercely competitive, and a recent survey reported in a BBC article showed that for every house on the rental market there are approximately 20-25 interested parties (see link https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67006468.) Why would a landlord be incentivised to rent to a military family when it is known that they are likely to move regularly and not offer the landlord stability? (For example, we own a house in a military town where we were once posted and see no benefit to renting our property to short-term SP tenants when there are plenty of potential civilian tenants who won’t move every 24 months or less.)

Noting that CGS and other senior officers regularly state that people are at the heart of the Army and their ‘vital ground’, I wish you the best of luck in maintaining the Army’s operational effectiveness by protecting the key components of our existing accommodation offer.

 

30 October 2023