Written evidence submitted anonymously SAC0073
Submissions on Call for Evidence (Service Accommodation) dated 22 December 2023
I am unable to comment on the measures have been put in place to resolve maintenance issues, hold service providers to account or ease the cost of living costs. Beyond, I am not aware of any additional support being provided or any details of upgrades to improve insultation. In fact, they are actively closing up fireplaces (which help provide warmth) as they say the properties will be made greener in the future, whilst commendable, this does not help those in service accommodation at present, that are poorly insulated, poor state of repair and permanently cold, in my experience.
Better communication would be of benefit to all involved.
From the outside looking in, I cannot see how the FDIS contracts represent value for money or operating effectively. All jobs, when the contractors show up, is a quick fix which simply requires multiple call outs and is never properly resolved. The cheapest of materials are used, which do not stand up to the test of time. There appears to be a lack of understanding of the accommodation and repair estimates. Decent homes and decent homes plus, is a minimum standard, which does not reflect housing today. Further, there is insufficient information as to what the measures of these so called standards are. In private rentals, landlords are held to a much higher standard in terms of repairs, standards of accommodation, call out times etc..
Again I cannot comment on this, there have been no communications beyond limited information on the new FAM model, with policies unwritten and more questions and answers. To be honest, in my opinion there is more distrust than ever.
From the outside, and being a user of SFA, I cannot see there have been any lessons learnt from the Annington Homes contract and one can only hope that whoever negotiated that contract, is asked to explain why the contract was so poor and acted as a detriment to defence.
From a service users perspective one can only presume now, whilst for example open fires are being closed, there is no act on the individual properties to make them greener. Service families are being left in a worse position than before. As above, no information is provided to service families on any innovative, we are always the last to know. Even when our assistance/input is requested, they are ignored. There is no interest is improving things for service personnel and their families. It is simply lip service. SLA is in an even worse state in some areas, in the 21st century, no individual should have to share showers and toilets with other service personnel, they should all have self-contained studio flats. This is even more important that individuals have a reasonable space and the proper ability to cook for themselves. The contract for food offers a terrible service, were many don’t get the core meal, unless they have booked it by a set time and are forced to have the retail menu of unhealthy and poor quality food.
Whilst I have no issues with all service families being provided with homes of a decent size and standard. I do object to the feudal approach being adopted to accommodation in the new future accommodation model. It is being put forward that this is not an erosion of the ‘offer’ and is simply to balance out and ensure larger families have adequate accommodation that fits their family size.
With all due respect to whoever decided this is not an erosion of the offer, ought to seek proper employment law advice, change of terms and conditions of employment, including those that are deemed custom and practice is in law an ‘erosion’ in the offer and it is wholly disingenuous to suggest otherwise. Whilst some ORs may see an increase in their offer, this is a reduction in the offer for many officers, who signed up under different terms and conditions and JSP. This appears to be similar to the erosion to what took place on pensions, prior to the McCloud Judgment.
The pilots undertaken by the MOD were not a reflection of the number of homes or service families that use service families accommodation. There are 49,000 homes within defence. The pilot had 8474 participants and the total research contributions was just 69! This is a merely 0.8% of those who participated in the pilot. This is an inadequate sample size to invoke a policy change that affects a larger number of people. Further, the pilot was optional and those adversely affected by the new policy did not partake in the pilot. There was supposedly no negative feedback, please investigate why. Such a small sample and research would not be reliable in any other field for a policy change.
Any change of policy ought to consider both positive and negative impacts, this policy does not. I personally attended online sessions for all 3 services, RAF, Navy and Army. Any negativity was immediately shut down, and in fact some of the responses from those delivering the message at the RAF and Navy sessions were downright rude and disrespectful to the participants questions and concerns.
Whilst there will be benefits in the housing sizes allocated to those with larger families, the policy, roadshows have not set out the costs or implications for others. There is a suggestion one of reasons the policy is being changed is because it will assist those when they transition out of the services into civilian life. Put simply the previous allocation policy was in line with social housing where children up to the age of 10, are expected to share bedrooms. In private rental and home ownership the test is affordability, which is not part of this policy.
In fact the policy in my view is discriminatory against childless couples, those who fall into the LBGQT+ communities and officers who tend to have smaller families. It seems as you move up the career ladder that you are penalised in terms of housing allocation, yes it is subsided but it is also part of the offer, which is being eroded for many. The accommodation is subsided, because in the service of one’s country, service personnel and their families are asked to move around the country and overseas, to the detriment of marriage, family life, stability, financial security for a partner and loss of friendship.
Some roles are not required to move for most of their careers, others particularly officers in the Army are required to move every 2 years and uproot their lives. Now they will also have to contend with smaller accommodation not in line with what they could achieve in civilian life, more likely in a poorer state of repair.
The policy is billed as taking into consideration all family’s needs but it focus purely on the number of children a service family has and no other considerations, does not take into consideration the modern family and this is not a policy for all service families.
In my view, the policy needs to be abandoned and the focus should be on improving and upgrading the accommodation to meet today’s standards of living and stop penalising others, to achieve a policy which will only make a few happy. That will result in a degradation of the officer offer, certainly for our family we will leave once FAM is properly implemented, as I do not see that all the sacrifices I have made as a partner of a serving officer, including many years married unaccompanied where my partner paid for their mess accommodation which was not a requirement across all the services, with no support or voice, too inadequate service family accommodation (at least of a decent size) in poor states of repair, shoddy workmanship (my favourite is the shower over the bath that faces into the bathroom as opposed to the bath and is therefore unusable), cold with poor insulation and high energy bills. My partner being paid far less than they would receive outside of military service, the impact on my career to support my partner and now because we are childless to be told that we are of less worth of entitlement to accommodation of a standard we are use to or would purchase outside the military.
The policy makers honestly do not believe that private rental is fair on service personnel or that it is even wholly reasonable to expect individuals to buy and sell a house every couple of years to move around the country for an organisation that does not value them or their family. My partner will leave the service and the Army will lose a talented officer.
Further the roadshows, were not consistent in the information provided to service personnel and their families, an example of this is that some were told you could apply for 1 above entitlement and others suggested you could apply for 2 above. The information is inconsistent, confusing and wholly inadequate, with a poor pilot that is not reflective of those who use service families accommodation. Those who conducted the pilot should be shamed of how little data they are relying on ,to change a policy and for the ‘erosion’ of the offer.
Any such policy should include an affordability test which includes the cost of the accommodation, energy bills etc…
It would seem this policy has been designed to distract service personnel away from the real issue which is the disrepair and inadequate quality of the housing stock (e.g. black mould), poor maintenance contacts and sow discord between other ranks and officers. As well as targeting childless officers, making them feel unwanted and undervalued.
Adopting the above policy (FAM), will not help service personnel transition to civilian housing. Private rentals are not allocated on family size but on affordability, at market rates. This is also true for a mortgage it is assessed on affordability and not family size. Some responsibility ought to be on the personnel leaving the service to be responsible for their own finances and understanding of civilian housing. An affordability test should be included when allocating military housing stock and not family size.
Welfare can only support families so much, there must be individual accountability as well.
I am unable to comment on this question.
22 December 2023