1.The Department has neglected Single Living Accommodation for many years and has not given it anything like the priority that it has deserved, despite the clear link between accommodation and delivery of operational capability. Single Living Accommodation is part of the overall employment ‘offer’ to service personnel. There is a close connection between the quality of accommodation and the ability of the services to do their job and, ultimately, produce the capability needed to deliver defence outputs. The views of Service personnel on their accommodation influence their intention to stay or leave the services; in the 2020 Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey (AFCAS), 29% of service personnel living in Single Living Accommodation stated that accommodation was a factor which increased their intention to leave. While there have been building and refurbishment initiatives over the years, a large proportion of Single Living Accommodation is now old and worn out. At a time of financial pressures, accommodation is part of an overall balance of investment choices, and we recognise that the Department has often not had the resources to invest. Since 2010, Single Living Accommodation has been subject to a ‘fix on fail’ approach to maintenance which has contributed to a £1.5 billion deferred maintenance backlog across all forms of accommodation. This is another example of the Department’s short-term decision-making, deferring difficult decisions and increasing costs in the long-term; something we recently reported on in respect of the Equipment Plan. Since 2018, responsibility has been delegated to Commands, which have developed plans for improvements, but these are long overdue, and it may be some time before they deliver significant improvements.
Recommendation: The Department should report back to the Committee in six months on the changes it is introducing under its Defence Accommodation Strategy to raise the priority given to Single Living Accommodation, including implementation of the National Audit Office recommendations.
2.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 Single Living Accommodation living in the lowest-grade accommodation as of 31 October 2020. Some accommodation was so poor that 3% (2,388 personnel) incurred no rental charge. The Department accepts that it is important that service personnel feel valued, but many service personnel experience problems with the basics including hot water and heating. Satisfaction rates with the overall standard of their accommodation for service personnel living in Single Living Accommodation were at 49% in 2020, a decline from 58% in 2015. Despite the Department’s claim that satisfaction has remained stable or increased since delegation of responsibility for infrastructure to the Commands in 2018, this is not true of all services, and levels are still too low. Although the Department stated that contract Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are being achieved, service personnel satisfaction with maintenance and repairs does not reflect this. The Department expects to see improved delivery through the new Future Defence Infrastructure Services contracts, with more suppliers involved and better performance metrics.
Recommendation: The Department should set out clearly in its Defence Accommodation Strategy:
3.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, the Department has set no minimum standard for Single Living Accommodation. Without a baseline it is difficult to set a budget for improvement work or to know how much needs to be done on the estate. Without such information, Single Living Accommodation will always struggle to compete for resources with other priorities. A minimum standard should reflect changes in the reasonable expectations of service personnel; for example, access to wi-fi, and the ability to be able to cook for themselves. As more than 50,000 bed spaces constructed prior to 2000 would not meet the current building standards if built today, we have concerns about health and safety standards, although the Department tells us that fire risk assessments are completed at least every two years. With an increased focus on environmental sustainability, the Department needs to invest now to meet targets; it has some work underway, including running low carbon trials.
Recommendation: The Department should set and publish a clear minimum standard for the condition of its Single Living Accommodation by the end of the year, taking account of best practice in civilian standards and wider thinking on sustainability.
4.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 any organisation managing property would expect to have. Progress has been very slow, and the project was cancelled, then restarted, and now should be in service by 2022. We are extremely disappointed at this lack of progress for such a simple system, and have seen the Department having similar problems with other IT systems, such as that supporting army recruitment. The Department is developing a bespoke system instead of using platforms already available, which seems unnecessary given that other organisations already have systems to meet similar requirements. SLAMIS is expected to provide accommodation booking facilities and a picture of how accommodation is being used. This should aid investment decisions and help better match supply and demand of Single Living Accommodation. Although a substantial amount of Single Living Accommodation is unoccupied, Substitute Service Single Accommodation (SSSA) cost the Department £32.4 million in 2019–20, with a large amount of SSSA located in London and Bristol.
Recommendation: The Department should report back to the committee in six months on progress with delivering the SLAMIS system, including to confirm when in 2022 it will be fully operational.
5.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 up in response to the lack of governance and ownership of Single Living Accommodation. Overall responsibility is now delegated, with all Commands having their own plans to tackle different priorities, but there is a lack of a central view. The Department is developing the Defence Accommodation Strategy to coordinate the overall approach to all accommodation needs which will also include the Defence Estate Optimisation Portfolio (to reduce the estate) and the Future Accommodation Model (to provide housing options). There is much experience in different public and private housing sectors which could be drawn on to help better manage Single Living Accommodation.
Recommendation: The Department should review and simplify the governance structures for Single Living Accommodation, including clarifying overall responsibility, and ensuring that those making decisions have the necessary capability and capacity.
6.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 and 2030. However, much of this is backloaded and focuses on the worst quality accommodation. The Department’s ‘fix on fail’ approach to maintenance has led to a huge backlog of works required, £1.5 billion across all accommodation, which will take time and money to reverse. The Department’s current expenditure is estimated to be only a third of what it should be spending to maintain the estate. Funding for Single Living Accommodation is not ring-fenced and it must compete with other demands on the defence budget, including equipment (which is around 40% of the total budget), which always takes priority. Depending on the outcome of the arbitration relating to the rents for service family homes leased from Annington Property Limited, there could also be further pressures on the overall budget and, in particular, on the amount set aside for improving accommodation. Since we took evidence, the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy has been published so the Department should now be clear about what additional funding is available for Single Living Accommodation.
Recommendation: In the light of the publication of the Integrated Review, the Department should reassess its plans and the funding needed to improve Single Living Accommodation, taking account of the promised minimum standard, and focusing on making as much money available as soon as possible to start addressing years of underinvestment.
Published: 23 April 2021 Site information Accessibility statement