LETTER TO THE CHAIRMAN FROM KIRSTY DUDIN,
HOUSING SPECIALIST, ARMY FAMILIES FEDERATION (27 NOVEMBER 2000)
During the evidence being given by the three
Chairs of the Service families organisations last Wednesday you
invited them to submit any further concerns about matters which
time had not allowed to be adequately covered in that session.
As an observer last Wednesday I was concerned
by one of your comments which seemed to indicate that you believed
more money from the sale of MoD quarters in England and Wales
to Annington Homes in 1996 was being spent on our homes than is
actually the case. In my position as Housing Specialist for the
AFF and in view of your DHE visitors this coming Wednesday I believe
it important to clarify for your committee what AFF believes is
the current situation about funding for the upgrade of our homes.
In 1995 DHE took over the management of MoD
quarters in England, Wales and Scotland. At that time £370
million was in DHE's long term costings for the upgrade of those
quarters. When the Government sold to Annington Homes the estate
in England and Wales in 1996 DHE was asked to estimate how much
more money would be needed to bring the estate, including in Scotland,
up to Standard One for Condition over a seven year period and,
based on information about the estate that had been given to DHE
by MoD the previous year, the former DHE Chief Executive deducted
that an additional £100 million would be sufficient. This
amount was "ring-fenced" for the upgrade work. £100
million was the equivalent of only 6 per cent of the £1.662
billion that Annington Homes paid to the Government. (What happened
to the remaining 94%? There was a transfer of funding from the
Treasury to MoD to pay for the annual rent to Annington Homes,
but what of the rest?) This brought the total funding to £470
million, to be made available to DHE to complete the upgrade programme
by autumn 2003.
A detailed survey of the estate in 1998 revealed
it to be in a worse state than previously appreciated, with DHE
facing huge costs of structural and utilities improvements. An
additional £112 million was requested in order to achieve
the promised deadline of upgraded quarters by autumn 2003. This
request was refused. Instead, the time needed to complete the
upgrade slipped from 2003 to 2005. Adding insult to injury, in
autumn 1999 the Government withdrew £17 million from DHE's
in-year funding which led to enormous disappointment by families
awaiting an imminent upgrade. Although some of that £17 million
was put back disillusion had by then set in, and families lost
faith in DHE's ability to produce goods. This was unfair as DHE
had had a well structured upgrade programme and had had every
intention of completing it on time, if given the promised funding.
It is now generally believed that the money
to upgrade our houses is not "ringfenced", that DHE
has to fight its and our corner each year in competition with
other departments in MoD. Forward planning for DHE seems extremely
difficult to achieve with any degree of certainty as confirmation
of its budget for the next year is not forthcoming until after
the start of that financial year! Given these difficulties I am
amazed at what DHE is managing to achieve. By the end of 2000
it will have spent £290 million on upgrades. The difference
in morale for Army families when they are allocated upgraded quarters
or a newly built house is astonishing . . . a shower, wow, just
like a real bathroom in a civilian house! Very sadly there are
many Army families who still live in substandard houses and many
are now suspecting that even nine years after the sale of the
quarters to Annington Homes they could still be having to live
in damp cold miserable hovels with old bathrooms and falling-apart
kitchens. We do not believe that the promise of Standard One for
Condition, an adequate standard, can be achieved across the country
for Army families accommodation by autumn 2005 unless sufficient
funding is allocated absolutely and specifically for DHE well
in advance, ie now!
At the AFF Conference this May Mr Spellar did
not give out any positive vibes when I asked him if he could give
us a guarantee that the promised deadline for the upgrade programme
of 2005 would be met. He said "We are very concerned to ensure
that we get the upgrade done." How can the upgrade be done
sensibly, efficiently and within the next four years without DHE
being sufficiently and sensibly funded now?
Army families need reassurance that MoD really
does care for them. The signals being given out as regards funding
the upgrade of our quarters to an adequate, by no means a luxurious,
standard is telling us that this care is not a very deep or committed
care. With the current problems with retention and the continued
overstretch of our Service personnel, the last thing needed is
disquiet on the home front.
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