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The Ministry of Defence (the Department) has an extensive and complex estate of some 240,000 hectares. After the Forestry Commission, the Department is the United Kingdom's second largest landowner. The estate is valued at over £18 billion and cost some £3.3 billion to operate in 2005-06. The built estate (80,000 hectares) includes offices, living accommodation, aircraft hangars and naval bases; the rural estate (160,000 hectares) comprises mainly training areas. The estate is essential to the delivery of military capability and the welfare and morale of Service personnel. In recent years, there have been significant changes to the way that the Department manages its estate, and there are many different projects which are intended to improve the quality of its land and buildings.
Much of the living accommodation leaves a lot to be desired, and some military personnel and their families will continue to live in substandard housing for the next 20 years. Despite improvements, more than 50% of 110,000 bedspaces of single accommodation in Great Britain fall below the requisite standard, and 19,000 family houses (over 40% of stock) are also below standard. The Department only plans to upgrade 900 family houses each year.
In 2006-07, the Department cut £70 million from its budget in response to unforeseen rises in the cost of fuel and other problems. The Department took £15 million from its budget for estate management. It decided to cut planned maintenance work, including re-roofing projects and repairs to hangar doors, rather than postponing other work such as the construction of all-weather pitches and the resurfacing of tennis courts. In part, this decision was taken because of poor management information, which also meant that £45 million of low-value construction projects could not be carried out in the most efficient way. The Department does not yet understand the full cost of its estate or where future investment should be targeted to best effect.
Skills shortages are adversely affecting the Department's ability to discharge some of its key estate management responsibilities. A lack of quantity surveyors means that it cannot properly scrutinise capital works projects and may be paying too much in some cases. The shortage of safety works professionals puts its adherence to Health and Safety legislation at risk, and could have legal implications.
On the basis of the Comptroller and Auditor General's Report,[1] we took evidence from the Department on the standard of living accommodation, the Department's ability to prioritise estate projects effectively, and its response to staff shortages.
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