Conclusions and recommendations
1. More than half of single living accommodation
and over 40% of accommodation for families does not meet the Department's
definition of high-quality accommodation and is therefore substandard.
The Department needs
to prioritise upgrades to the 138 houses at the lowest Standard
4 and then to the 2,000 Standard 3 houses, irrespective of location.
Occupants should be offered the opportunity to move to other accommodation
for the duration of works, including rented accommodation. The
Department should not allow any more housing to fall into Standard
4.
2. Poor accommodation for single personnel
and for families has a negative impact on retention but the impact
on retention rates of upgrading accommodation is poorly understood.
The Comptroller and Auditor General concluded
in previous work that it is more cost-effective to retain personnel
than to recruit and train replacements.[2]
The Department should investigate the relationship between the
quality of accommodation and retention rates, to assess how far
extra investment to achieve a swifter improvement in the condition
of housing could be expected to be offset by savings in recruitment
and training costs.
3. Service personnel and their families who
are living in the worst accommodation do not know when their housing
will be upgraded. As it works to improve
substandard accommodation, the Department should publish detailed
programmes of the houses and single living spaces it intends to
upgrade well in advance to give Service personnel and their families
more information.
4. There are significant gaps in the Department's
understanding of the cost of its estate and it still has no effective
way of knowing where funding is needed most. The
Department should improve its understanding of the costs of maintaining
and running its estate. In particular, it should:
¯ develop
a deeper knowledge of the costs which lie with the three
Services and other internal customers, including funding for Minor
New Works and the overheads of Customer Estate Organisations and
Site Estate Representatives; and
¯ implement
Integrated Estate Management Plans for all defence sites, compiled
according to a standardised methodology.
5. The Department had to spend an additional
£20 million in its contract with Modern Housing Solutions
after underestimating the work required to maintain family accommodation.
With better management information, the
backlog could have been identified earlier, and the cost would
almost certainly have been less.
6. In 2006-07 £13.5 million of planned
maintenance work was deferred in response to budget cuts, whilst
the resurfacing of tennis courts and the construction of sports
pitches went ahead. If the Department
has to make cuts to the budget for the defence estate in future,
it should consider planned maintenance together with other projects
and target cuts at the lowest priority work. The Department should
develop a funded plan for the completion of the deferred work,
so it can hold contractors to their contractual obligations on
the overall condition of the estate, and avert long-term damage
to the buildings.
7. Defence Estates and the centre of the Department
received almost no advance warning of the Minor New Works projects
that the three Services and other internal customers ordered in
2006-07. As a result, expenditure on the
estate could not be planned, prioritised and programmed in an
effective way. The three Services and other internal customers
of Defence Estates should develop funded lists of Minor New Works
well in advance of each financial year to allow Defence Estates
to prioritise these projects effectively, and to build sensible
and cost-effective programmes of work.
8. The Department employs only 56% of the
safety works staff and 57% of the quantity surveyors that it needs
on its estate. The Department is exposing
itself and its employees to significant Health and Safety risks
whilst the lack of quantity surveyors impairs the scrutiny of
project contracts. The Department should:
¯ establish
the specific risks arising from current skills shortages and put
in place measures to mitigate these risks;
¯ see
how other public and private sector organisations overcome similar
skills shortages and adopt successful practices; and
¯ allow
sufficient pay flexibility to attract appropriately skilled staff
to fill the empty posts.
9. The Department's pilot project at RAF Kinross
showed that implementing energy saving measures at its defence
sites would bring environmental benefits and recurring financial
savings of more than £2 million annually. The
Department should implement energy-saving measures on the sixteen
sites it has already identified as soon as possible and should
roll out similar work at all its other sites, starting with those
that consume the most energy.
2 C&AG's Report, Recruitment and Retention in
the Armed Forces, Vol. 1, HC (2005-06) 1633-I, para 18 Back
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