Recommendation 17

Data from the last snapshot on 26 February 2020, showed a quarter of Single Living Accommodation is unoccupied, and one-fifth of sites had more than 40% of Single Living Accommodation bed space unused.50 The Department agreed that a substantial amount is unoccupied and that is has more Single Living Accommodation than it needs across the estate. This meant that it is in the difficult situation of having to decide whether to spend its limited funds demolishing infrastructure that it does not need or on improving the infrastructure that is in use. We asked what an appropriate level of under-occupancy would be, and the Department responded that it would be location- specific and could not set a single percentage across the whole estate.51 At the same time as having unoccupied accommodation, the Department spent £32.4 million in 2019–20 on Substitute Service Single Accommodation (SSSA).52 It told us that the money spent on substitute accommodation is almost entirely in locations where it has a deficit of Single 43 C&AG’s Report, para 2.12 44 Qq 41, 75 45 Qq 59, 60 46 Qq 61, 65, 67; C&AG’s Report, para 2.4, Figure 7 47 Qq 61, 63–64 48 Committee of Public Accounts Report, Capita’s contracts with the Ministry of Defence, Eightieth Report of Session 2017–19, HC 1736, March 2019, para 11 49 Q 62 50 Q 89; C&AG’s Report, paras 10, 2.13 51 Qq 89, 92 52 C&AG’s Report, para 2.11 Improving single living accommodation for service personnel 15 Living Accommodation, with approximately 60% of that in London and Bristol, two areas where it would be very costly to invest in the necessary level of capacity to be able to provide all the Single Living Accommodation that it needs.53 Oversight and coordination