SAC0054

Written evidence submitted anonymously

 

I am the wife of a serving member of the armed forces who currently lives in SFA. I “married into the military” fairly late on, so my experience and observations to many aspects of military life, including SFA, are made having lived a “normal” civilian life for most of my adult life beforehand.

 

In response to point 2 “Do the new FDIS represent value for money and are they operating effectively?” I have to reply with a resounding ‘No”. I have no doubt that you will hear from parties during this enquiry who will justify the abhorrent failings of this contract with being “under resourced” and how things are now notably better than when the contract was introduced. How XXX extra employees have been taken on, and how lessons have been learnt. I have to stress to you that the lived experience of serving families is that this is simply not the case.

 

As service families we were made promises when this new contract came into force. We were invited to listen to Air Commodore Savage explain that he’d heard our issues with the old contract, and that this new one served to address it. That military families would no longer be left in sub-standard accommodation and that a robust complaints and maintenance procedure formed the very core of the new contract. We have seen none of this. I won’t go into specifics as they have been well documented, but I would implore members of this committee to seek out the online social media groups formed by service families, for service families to discuss SFA. Here you will see the reality of what serving families face day after day. You will note the issues and red tape that lead to serving families feeling undervalued. Do not underestimate the effect this has on retention of military personnel.

 

I would like to lay out a couple of key areas of the contract that aren’t being adhered to and issues within it. Firstly, the compensation scheme for missed appointments has been farcical. We have all heard the excuses about why, but it doesn’t justify that it has been allowed to happen for so long with no intervention. So you are clear about our lived experience - when a contractor fails to show for a scheduled appointment, we log this with Pinnacle. They then have to confirm with Amey/Vivo that the appointment was missed as they have no overall view of who attended where. There is no timescale for this confirmation. After this has been confirmed (which has taken weeks or even months in some cases) Pinnacle issue compensation via love2shop. Here there have been further significant delays. When compensation is finally issued, there is no reference number to the job it relates to. So if you have several missed appointment claims - as many of us do - you have no way of confirming which have been completed. The end result is families end up losing track of compensation they are due. In a lot of cases, the process has taken so long that families have simply given up. I would urge you to get accurate figures on the number of missed appointments when you look into “value for money”. On a personal level, since this contract has been introduced we have had almost £200 worth of missed appointments. As an aside, the compensation is of little comfort having wasted time waiting in for a contractor to yet again not appear. Most serving families would agree they would far rather the contractor on time than compensation. We were also promised one hour appointments. These rarely happen and when they do they are only confirmed the evening before so are of little benefit.

 

The complaints process is also not fit for purpose. We have been repeatedly shown flow diagrams detailing how simple it is, when in reality it just doesn’t work. To escalate a claim to DIO, Pinnacle have to close the complaint at Stage 1. If they have not closed the complaint, it cannot be escalated. So families sit with issues, stuck with the very body who the complaint is about. Families cannot force Pinnacle to close a complaint. This needs to be addressed. In my own experience, Pinnacle did close a stage 1 complaint and it was escalated to Stage 2. At this point DIO stated that it shouldn’t have been closed as Pinnacle hadn’t dealt with the Stage 1 correctly so it was being passed back. After many weeks Pinnacle said they knew nothing about that happening and the whole process started again. It’s still not resolved.

 

As families we were promised improvements to photos/layouts when it comes to choosing our SFA. This may seem minor, but let me stress that it is incredibly important. As it stands, serving families, if they are lucky, may get a photo or two of a property, and occasionally a layout. Often these photos are incredibly old, inaccurate, or so pixelated that they are pointless. This makes it incredibly hard to choose a property that you are likely to be living in for the next 3+ years. Simple things like the orientation of two properties that look similar from the outside being different can make a big difference. The result of this is that furniture may not fit resulting in serving families having to buy new at their own expense (no the relocation allowance doesn’t cut it I’m afraid). Aside from the obvious inconvenience, it also belittles the serving family as if what they are housed in “doesn’t really matter”. A civilian would not choose to rent or buy a house without seeing it first. Although we are entitled to discounted housing against market rates - if we choose to live in SFA -  we still pay for it. It is inconceivable that in 2023 we are in many instances essentially blindly choosing our family homes. Providing up to date floorpans and photos should have been a matter of priority if it formed part of this new contract. Again, please do not underestimate the effect housing has on retention.

 

I would also like to address Point 6 “benefits and drawbacks of the FAM”. As I understood it, FAM was supposed to increase choice. Whilst there are some welcome changes such as outdated rank based allocations and unmarried families and step children now being considered fairly in allocations, I do not see any real increase of choice. The two most innovative parts of the pilot project - allowing serving families to choose a subsidised private rental, or to receive an allowance in lieu of SFA towards their mortgage, have been neglected. These were the two policies that would have truly given serving personnel choice about where they live, and the option to choose a home that works for them. It is incredibly disappointing that they haven’t been taken forward. I am curious to see how allocations are going to work given that the current system is extremely automated and it is nigh on impossible to speak to a human being about any housing allocation query. In areas of low private rental stock, what will happen when all SFA has been allocated now that the criteria for who can apply has been expanded?

 

That forms part of my last point. Housing is a personal and sensitive topic. As military families we accept that home is never home for long. But it is whilst we live there. Too often it feels like we are having to fight for very basic requests - whether that is repairs, or choosing a suitable home in the first instance. Please remove some of the automation and bring back sensible human interaction. Do not underestimate how much housing affects retention.

 

Finally - this call for evidence was only pushed out to serving families 24 hours before the deadline. Please consider speaking to us and asking for our lived reality earlier in future.

 

 

31 October 2023