Examination of Wintesses (Questions 1-19)
VICE ADMIRAL
TIMOTHY LAURENCE
MVO, ADC, MR DAVID
OLNEY, MR
BILL CLARK
OBE AND MR
MIKE MARTINDALE
15 MAY 2007
Q1 Chairman: Vice Admiral Laurence, welcome
to you and your team. Would you please begin by introducing your
team and telling us what they do?
Vice Admiral Laurence: Thank you
very much. On my right, David Olney is the Director-General Operations
who, as his name implies, runs the operational side of Defence
Estates; on my immediate left Bill Clark, Director of Secretariat
who deals with all Secretariat issues; and on the far left Mike
Martindale who is my Finance Director.
Q2 Chairman: Thank you very much.
This is part of a normal scrutiny process into the agencies and
other bodies of the Ministry of Defence, and so we are doing this
inquiry into Defence Estates. I am sorry in a way that you are
being called before two select committees in two days; it seems
a bit excessive somehow, but at least yesterday was a practice
for today!
Vice Admiral Laurence: In the
same room!
Q3 Chairman: Can you tell us what
Defence Estates is exactly?
Vice Admiral Laurence: Defence
Estates is the organisation responsible for delivering an Estate
of the right quality and the right size for the Ministry of Defence.
We sit between the customers, the frontline and other customers
in the Ministry of Defence, and the supply chain, if you like
to call it that, the contractors who deliver services to the Ministry
of Defence. We essentially facilitate the delivery of services
to the Estate.
Q4 Chairman: So you manage it. Do
you also own the Estate, or do you just manage it?
Vice Admiral Laurence: Most of
the assets of the Estate have now been transferred to a single
balance sheet which lies within the organisation called "Defence
Estates", so most of it we do; but of course some we lease;
some is in other hands through private finance initiatives and
so forth.
Q5 Chairman: Quite apart from being
called in front of two select committees in two days, you only
took up your role of Chief Executive, what, last month?
Vice Admiral Laurence: A fortnight
ago.
Q6 Chairman: Thank you very much
for coming to see us. What are your priorities in your new role?
Vice Admiral Laurence: Thank you
for giving me that opportunity, Chairman. I would pick out four,
but there are obviously more. You could say that the top four
priorities are: accommodation; accommodation; accommodation; and
accommodation. Certainly the first I would put is accommodation;
both improving the standard of the accommodation that we have,
upgrading it, bringing it up to the top condition; and also improving
the standard of routine maintenance that we provide through various
contractors. That is my top priority. The second priority is the
need for a new overall Estate development plan. What I found coming
into the job is that we have a lot of strategy and policy; we
are very well served for that; but, as somebody once said, "The
genius of the strategy is not in the design but in the execution".
I think what we need now is an update of a really full, comprehensive
execution. The last one we did was about four years ago and it
needs updating. That will be an important task for me to complete
fairly soon. The next priority, and we have talked about this
to a degree already, is to redefine the role of Defence Estates:
where exactly do we sit between the frontline customer and the
suppliers? The new arrangements that have come into play over
the last two or three years have now settled down; now is the
time I think to review where that is going and to refine what
we do; doing that will allow me to understand how many people
we need in Defence Estates, and what precisely their skills should
be. That will give us, the Board, a very good indication of where
we need to take the organisation and who we need in it. The final
priority I would point to is the whole issue of sustainability.
It is absolutely vital to us to do a number of things: consume
less energy and less water; to produce less waste; when we do
new building to build on sustainable principles; to minimise the
impact on the environment; and to look after our historic sites.
I think all of those things are absolutely obvious and clear to
us. My question is not whether we should be doing this
but how we should be doing it. How do we do it in an affordable
way? How do we make it practical to do it? When we discover good
ways of doing best practice, how do we spread that best practice
out across the Estate?
Q7 Chairman: You are the second largest
landowner in the country, are you not?
Vice Admiral Laurence: Indeed.
Q8 Chairman: I have noticed a change,
an improvement, in the Ministry of Defence's environmental approach.
We will come on to that later. Last month you stopped being an
Agency. What was the reason for that; and what would the consequences
have been?
Vice Admiral Laurence: I will
give my initial view on that, but I might ask either Bill Clark
or Mike Martindale, who have had more experience of the Agency
and the operation, to follow up. Two years ago we became a top
level budget in the Ministry of Defence which put us on a par
with the frontline commands and what is now Defence Equipment
and Supply. I think that was the major change. It gave us that
important status in the Ministry of Defence. Having achieved that
status, the status of being an Agency became very much less important.
All the disciplines of being an Agency were very well embedded
in Defence Estates and will continue to be applied. In a sense,
it became less relevant and the decision was taken, as I understand
it, that it was no longer necessary. Perhaps I might just ask
Bill Clark to add to that.
Mr Clark: I would just add, Chairman,
the other thing is that we are still accountable through our key
targets to the centre of the Department and, more importantly,
we now are alongside the other top management parts of the Department,
like the Defence Equipment and Support organisation, and like
the frontline TLBs. I would also say that, in terms of reporting,
instead of reporting through another Top Level Budget holder,
we now report directly into the Defence Management Board and,
in that sense, are held more directly accountable for delivery
of services. I think the final point I would add is that our customers
fully supported this—the frontline, the Armed Forces—because
they actually felt they were coming into the centre of the Department
and therefore work alongside them, instead of being perceived
as an outside Agency in support of military capability; and for
all those reasons, and bearing in mind all the Government's arrangements
are as strong, if not stronger, than when we formed up as an Agency
in 2003, I think it made perfect sense.
Q9 Robert Key: Admiral, nobody doubts
your desire to improve the situation regarding accommodation both
for married quarters and for single soldiers. The problem is that
we are frequently told that any time someone is looking for a
cut in an annual budget the first thing to go is housing maintenance;
the second thing to go is housing refurbishment; and the third
thing to go is new build. In your experience, of all of two weeks,
have you come across that; and is it a challenge you recognise
has got to be faced?
Vice Admiral Laurence: I certainly
think that was the case 10 or 15 years ago. That is the principal
reason why we have inherited a backlog of work that needs to be
done on the Estate. I think it is very much less true now, although
in the last financial year there was a small cut imposed on the
regional prime contractors which did have an impact on the Estate.
My organisation argued against it at the time, and we will continue
to argue against that sort of cut in the future.
Q10 Robert Key: I am sure I will
be right with you in arguing against it. I think of my own constituency,
for example, and Larkhill Garrison where the garrison commander
invited me only last month to see the contrast of the stock that
he has to work with. It may have been only a small cut but the
fact is, in the regional prime contract areas, in Scotland £1.3
million worth of planned work was deferred; in the south-west
231 projects were deferred this year; 83 building upgrades were
deferred; and 75 redecoration projects were postponed. In the
central area there is no firm programme of upgrade work; in the
eastern area there is no firm programme of lifecycle replacement
works. From the point of view of the soldiers and their families
this is becoming a serious factor in recruitment and retention.
We are told that this is a real problem facing particularly the
Army at the moment; the Navy has got it better under control,
it has to be said.
Vice Admiral Laurence: All of
those facts you have pointed out are true. There were a number
of deferrals from last year into this which we would rather avoid.
Yes, I do not welcome that; and, as I say, we argue strongly against
this sort of occurrence.
Q11 Robert Key: Do you think the
National Audit Office was right to suggest that Service personnel
could be living in substandard accommodation for up to 20 years
at the present rate?
Vice Admiral Laurence: The term
"substandard" is emotive and I challenge it slightly,
I have to say. I think we set our standards for accommodation
extremely high. We hugely increased the standards that we set
towards the end of the last decade, particularly the single living
accommodation where, up to that point, it had been the norm for
people to live in multiple room barracks. We have now set the
standard—that we aspire for every member of the Armed Forces
to have a single room with en suite facilities. That was a massive
change and there is a huge backlog to catch up with that. We are
doing what we can. We will not reach our very highest standards
for perhaps 10 or 20 years; but I do not think it is true to say
that those people not living in those very highest standards are
living in substandard accommodation; it is merely accommodation
which is not as high as we aspire to.
Q12 Mr Jones: You rank your accommodation
standards one to four, one being the best and four being the worst.
How many senior officers or generals are actually in Standard
4 accommodation?
Vice Admiral Laurence: I do not
know the answer to that, but I would be surprised if there were
any. We have very, very few married quarters in condition four.
Q13 Mr Jones: Condition three?
Vice Admiral Laurence: Again,
I do know the answer to that. I do not know if any of my colleagues
do?
Mr Clark: I do not know. We would
have to let you have a note.[1]
Q14 Mr Jones: It would be interesting
to have a breakdown to see, by rank, how the accommodation is
kept. Can I ask a question in terms of the newspaper headlines
this morning about poor accommodation, especially married accommodation.
Do you actually think it is right that four generals in the Army
Board cost the taxpayer in excess of £600,000 for their accommodation,
and the fact that one spent £2,000 on tableware, when we
are actually asking members of the Armed Forces and their families
to live in substandard accommodation? Is it not about time we
actually reviewed what is actually being offered to single generals?
Vice Admiral Laurence: In terms
of your overall point it is not really my position to make a comment
on it.
Q15 Mr Jones: It is, because you
actually look after the accommodation.
Vice Admiral Laurence: My responsibility
is looking after accommodation. The policy for what sort of accommodation
we have people living in is set by others; but my job is to look
after it. The point I would make about the recent newspaper headlines
is that every piece of the Defence Estate has to be looked after.
We have to spend money routinely on it. It would be wrong not
to spend money on a house simply because it was occupied by a
general. We have to do these things across the piece.
Q16 Mr Jones: Is not the question
to ask whether you actually provide accommodation. For example,
the Secretary of State for Defence himself, and I should think
the ministers and certainly Mr Jefferies, does not have accommodation
provided at this level, including the general in charge of Northern
Ireland who has got a valet provided by the MoD. I accept the
fact you are making about existing accommodation, but is it not
about time we reviewed priorities and they should be looked at?
Vice Admiral Laurence: We have
done two major reviews of the senior officers' accommodation in
the last five years—one in 2003 and one in 2005—and
on each occasion the number of official residences and senior
officers' accommodation was reduced. We undertook then to keep
it under continuous review and we do that.
Q17 Mr Jones: Is that report a public
document?
Vice Admiral Laurence: The Roser
Report in 2003 I think was a public document, but I would have
to check that.
Q18 Mr Jones: If it is, could we
have a copy of it?
Vice Admiral Laurence: We will
look into that and let you know.[2]
Q19 Robert Key: Could I return now to
the question of future plans for accommodation. The drawdown from
Germany is going to take many years to complete. We are already
aware of what is going on with Project Allenby, particularly in
my constituency. What are the implications of the drawdown from
Germany of the provision of accommodation? You presumably have
a plan stretching into ten, 15 or 20 years—could you tell
us what you are up to in that area?
Vice Admiral Laurence: I will
turn in a moment if I may to David Olney who is more up-to-date
on this than me. It is a very significant challenge for us. We
have over 20,000 troops stationed in Germany. We are in the process
of bringing some of them back at the moment. We aspire to bring
more back in the next three to four years; but there will still
be quite a number left behind. In terms of our overall strategy
for this, we aim to make use of vacant properties in the UK as
they become available. We have a long-term aspiration to create
super garrisons for the Army in the UK. We would like to develop
super garrisons in areas which, at the moment, do not have a very
big military presence—possibly in the West Midlands which
might be the first, and then looking elsewhere round the country,
perhaps the East Midlands and the north-west. Our overall strategy
is to look for opportunities over the long-term to bring units
back from Germany into areas where we are keen anyway to develop
a military presence.
Mr Olney: Just to amplify the
answer, we have a study on at the moment with the Army looking
specifically at the housing requirements as they draw down from
Germany, particularly looking at various locations such as Catterick,
potentially Innsworth and potentially other sites. That study
is looking at: firstly, the condition of the housing stock we
have in those areas; what would we need to do with them; secondly,
it is looking at options to lease off the market; going to house
builders, looking at their plans and working with them to lease
off the market; and, thirdly, potentially looking at what new-build
we would need to arrive at. Clearly, we have to comply with the
planning system, and so these are long-term plans and that is
why we are working them up now.
1 See Ev 30 Back
2
See Ev 30 Back
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