Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Fifty-Fourth Report - Improving single living accommodation for service personnel
Public Accounts Committee
HC 940
Published 23 April 2021
Recommendations
5
Management of Single Living Accommodation has long suffered from a lack of coordination, ownership and...
Recommendation
Management of Single Living Accommodation has long suffered from a lack of coordination, ownership and strategic grip. Currently no single person has responsibility for Single Living Accommodation, and there are many different stakeholders involved, with some groups having been set …
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HM Treasury
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Conclusions (23)
2
Conclusion
Although many service personnel live in poor quality Single Living Accommodation and are dissatisfied with their accommodation and with the maintenance and repairs service, the Department appeared surprisingly complacent about resolving this long-term issue. There is considerable variability in the standard of accommodation, with more than one-third of personnel in …
3
Conclusion
The lack of a minimum standard for Single Living Accommodation means the Department has no baseline against which to make investment decisions, or to demonstrate progress towards establishing an estate fit for the 21st century. Unlike for its Service Family Accommodation, and in contrast to elements of the housing sector, …
4
Conclusion
The Department’s lamentable failure to implement a Single Living Accommodation Management Information System (SLAMIS) over the past eight years means it is unable to manage its Single Living Accommodation efficiently. Project SLAMIS was initiated in 2013 to provide basic information on the Single Living Accommodation estate of a kind that …
6
Conclusion
We are concerned that, although Commands have plans to improve Single Living Accommodation, this will only address the worst problems, and available funding may be used to meet other demands. The Commands have set out plans to spend a total of £1.5 billion on upgrades and new-build accommodation between 2020 …
1
Conclusion
On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence from the Ministry of Defence (the Department) about Single Living Accommodation for service personnel.1
7
Conclusion
The standard of Single Living Accommodation is very variable, and the Department agreed that it is not acceptable that more than one-third of personnel in Single Living Accommodation are living in the lowest-grade accommodation (Grade 4 or below).17 We asked why the number of service personnel living in poorly rated …
8
Conclusion
We were concerned as to whether all the poorest quality accommodation meets minimum health and safety standards and asked why, if the accommodation used by 3% of personnel (2,388 individuals) was so poor that no rental charge was applied, it was not withdrawn from service. The Department told us that …
9
Conclusion
While the Department told us that it is tremendously important that personnel feel valued for what they are doing, we pointed out that some are living with problems with basic facilities including heating and hot water. The Department agreed that people should have access to these facilities and explained that …
10
Conclusion
We enquired as to what the Department is doing in response to the decline in levels of satisfaction reported in the 2020 Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey (AFCAS). This showed that 49% of service personnel living in Single Living Accommodation were satisfied with the overall standard of their accommodation, compared …
11
Conclusion
Over the past six years (from 2015 to 2020) there has been a decrease in satisfaction with both the response to requests for maintenance and repairs work for Single Living Accommodation, and the quality of that work.31 Nevertheless, the Department believes the performance of contractors is actually getting much better, …
12
Conclusion
We questioned why in contrast to properties rented from other providers such as local authorities, housing associations or private landlords, where there is a legally required standard for the accommodation, there is no specified standard for Single Living Accommodation. This is also in contrast to Service Family Accommodation where the …
13
Conclusion
The Department acknowledged that expectations of service personnel are changing, and that what they needed at different points of their career varied.39 We are aware, for example, that there are concerns about poor or expensive wi-fi, and a lack of cooking facilities.40 We were interested to understand what the Department …
14
Conclusion
We raised concerns that, given sustainability targets, in two or three years the Department will have to retrofit much relatively new accommodation. It told us that it is running a number of low-carbon trials across Single Living Accommodation properties and considers that a 5% to 7% uplift can deliver a …
15
Conclusion
There is no single source of data on Single Living Accommodation, and the Department lacks central data on its location, condition and usage.43 The Department said it recognises that its ability to track who is using what accommodation is poor at the moment, with it only having data from a …
16
Conclusion
Given the Department stated it is looking for a simple solution, we questioned why, after eight years of development, SLAMIS was not yet in service. The Department acknowledged the poor performance and that the SLAMIS project that commenced in 2013 failed to deliver, was cancelled and then was restarted in …
17
Conclusion
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 …
18
Conclusion
The management of Single Living Accommodation encompasses both people and infrastructure, and involves multiple stakeholders across defence. There is no overarching strategy for Single Living Accommodation setting out what the Department wishes to achieve or bringing together the aims of the various stakeholders.54 The Department has acknowledged a lack of …
19
Conclusion
Since the delegation of infrastructure budgets in 2018, each Command has developed its own plans tailored to its specific needs and priority areas, and it has set individual targets to reduce poor-quality Single Living Accommodation.57 We questioned the lack of a central view on what is needed for Single Living …
20
Conclusion
Improvements to Single Living Accommodation cannot be carried out in isolation because they overlap with wider departmental programmes such as the Defence Estate Optimisation (DEO) Portfolio (to create an estate of a more appropriate size and better quality) and the Future Accommodation Model (FAM) (to provide personnel with a range …
21
Conclusion
The Department explained that under the delegated responsibilities for infrastructure, including Single Living Accommodation, the Commands will decide how much to spend in this area, alongside other areas within their remit. In the 2020 Annual Budget Cycle, the Commands set out plans to spend £1.5 billion on upgrading and replacing …
22
Conclusion
The funds for improving Single Living Accommodation are not ring-fenced. While the Department stressed that Single Living Accommodation was a very high priority in Defence, it also stated there are other priorities.66 It faces wider affordability challenges, and the equipment portfolio, which is 41% of the entire defence budget, is …
23
Conclusion
The Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy was delayed until March 2021, but in November 2020 the government announced it would provide an additional £16.5 billion of defence funding over the next four years.70 The Department said that the recent funding settlement gives it the opportunity to …
24
Conclusion
We asked for an update on the renegotiation of rents for service family accommodation leased from Annington Property Limited, on which the Committee last reported in 2019.75 The Department currently benefits from a 58% reduction in the market rent that Annington charges for these homes, but this is due to …