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Embargoed until 00:01 Tuesday 20 October - MOD responds to PAC report on Service Family Accommodation

News Release issued by the COI News Distribution Service on 19 October 2009

The Public Accounts Committee has today published a report into the Service Family Accommodation (SFA) provided to British forces personnel and their families.

Veterans Minister Kevan Jones said: I welcome the committee’s recognition that over 90 percent of the SFA properties in the UK are at the top two of our four standards for condition and meet or exceed the Government’s Decent Homes Standard. All the properties which are currently at standards three and four will be upgraded to standards one and two by 2013. We expect to spend £3bn on upgrading and refurbishing Service accommodation over the next 10 years.

“The committee has raised a number of issues including the high number of empty or ‘void’ houses. The MOD is unlike any other housing provider and manages around 20,000 family moves every year and it is necessary to keep a certain number of properties vacant to facilitate this. However, we accept that there is work to be done which is why I have set a target of reducing voids to 10 percent by 2012. We have already reduced voids from 21 percent in 2008 to less than 16 percent and aim to reach 15 percent by the end of this financial year.

“The report suggests that families are not being given enough information about properties when they are allocated to them. We too have identified this as an issue that needs to be addressed and are working to improve communication channels.

“I am pleased that the committee acknowledges the improvement in the reported performance of our maintenance contractors but we are not complacent and we continue to work with Modern Housing Solutions to improve the service our personnel and their families receive.

“The report rightly recognises both the size and challenge we face, and the huge effort we have made to improve the standard of Service Accommodation. I will now look at all the recommendations in the report in depth and provide a detailed response to the Committee in due course.”

Notes to Editors:

Currently, as part of the £3.bn that we expect to spend on new builds, upgrades, and improvements across all types of living accommodation over the next 10 years, we are upgrading 600 homes in this financial year and 800 next FY. Recent examples include 136 houses at Blandford Camp in Dorset and 154 at Invicta Park in Kent. We are also making smaller scale improvements such as installing new bathrooms, kitchens and roofs in many more homes.

To reduce the number of empty properties, we are working closely with the Armed Forces on future basing decisions, and accelerating the necessary improvements such as new carpets and rewires to others to make them habitable. In 08/09 we will have disposed of some 1,300 properties that are now surplus to military requirements

In August 2009 the MOD published the Defence Accommodation Management Strategy which sets out plans for improving housing for both Service Families Accommodation and Single Living Accommodation over the next decade.

For more information please contact Hannah Fletcher in the MOD press office on 0207 218 7924.

Contacts:

Ministry of Defence
NDS.MOD@coi.gsi.gov.uk