New 'Agility'Movements Contract

[Whenurhappy]

I'm afraid this thread is primarily for those serving (and, indeed, those about to depart).

From 31 Aug 11, a new Movements contract and process was established, with 'Agility', in partnership with the MOD. This is for the movement of all personal effects, furnture etc between postings - on on discharge from the Services.

Perhaps the system isn't particularly mature, but I used them recently and found the contractor head office staff to be vacuous, clueless and down-right rude (to give them credit, I also got a gritted-teeth appology form them). I have also threatened to send them a school atlas to help with their 'strategic planning' after some geographical howlers. They sent a LN out to assess our volumes and he generated a figure that was 50% higher than our actual volume move 12 months ago! (note to self - stop wife from shopping...), including items such as the neighbour's kids' trampoline, a snow blower and a garden cabana (none of which is ours - and I told him so at the time!).

I also have to question the VFM, especially for overseas moves. For example, a colleague recently moved a short distance from one government hiring to another as a 'Service move'. A truck and crew were dispatched across Europe to his location but they refused to move the MOD furniture (he is in a 'furnished quarter') - the contract doesn't allow it! They simply moved his family's personal effects several km, and then went back to the UK. He was advised to contact his Quarter Master (wtf?) to move the MOD furniture, but in practice, his closest support unit is about 500 km away and they couldn't provide vehicles, so he was obliged to hire a local carter and move the stuff himself. And there is now no means to be reimbursed for this. Additionally, even our troops in barracks have to use this Agility contract - gone are the days of borrowing the PSI van or a local dodgy van-hire firm and shift your kit yourself.

Has anyone else had any expereince of the new Agility Contract?

[Jumping_Jack]

Recently had a UK move with the new contract, to be fair it went well. The booking was seamless and the survey was done efficiently using a tablet and mini printer to produce the inventory (miles better than the unreadable 4x Carbonated sheets used previously!) The subcontractor was on time and only one glass was broken in the move. The only below par is the collection of the empty boxes....been a month now and I am getting a little irritated that they haven't collected (been promised tomorrow!). I guess that internal UK moves are the easier and more straightforward. :p

[Whenurhappy]

Inventory? What's that? Didn't get one! Must be me...

I'm pleased that your move went well, even if your inventory was no longer fizzy (ie non carbonated...:p)

[Jumping_Jack]

Ho ho!

Just as an after thought, when we moved back to Blighty from Stateside, the local contractor was thoroughly confused with the volumes allowed. JSP states allowance in cubic metres, local mong worked in cubic feet. They really never did get to grips with the difference....could this have been a factor in your being over the allowance? In the end we went for the 20ft ISO option and banked on the fact that DTMA wouldn't come and check the actual volume on arrival in UK! That said, the ISO wasn't full by any means.....

[Could be the last?]

Used agility recently and had the following:

Surveyor's laptop u/s so guessed the dimensions. His estimate was delivered at 12cubic Mtrs. However, entitlement was 15.5! Agility stated that there is a 10% error allowance over and below! Even as a door slider I can work out that they were outside of the error! Further 3 months to convince the the contractor that they owed me the extra lift........ Further 3.5 delivered 'under duress'!

As with all contracts and contractors the interaction with the military is limited and whoever put this one together probably got promoted! VFM - probably, flexibility with the move - not really. Would you use or accept this system if you were paying for it directly - NO!

That said, the guys on the coal face were very helpful and didn't trash my kit!

[orgASMic]

Agility organised our recent move and were pretty good with getting close to our preferred date for our move from Wiltshire to London. The estimate was completed in good time and was comfortably outside the reality but inside the allowance.

The actual move was conducted by White (Bournemouth branch), who provided a pantechnicon that was smaller than both our estimate and our allowance. :rolleyes: Even after offloading the spare packing materials to create some more space, this meant a follow-up trip the day after to sweep up the couple of cubic metres left behind. This arrived in an almost empty artic' which could have done the job in one hit. We discovered, on unpacking, where the space had gone - the contents of the chests of drawers and the like had been packed into boxes and the chests and other containers loaded empty alongside the boxes filled with their contents.:ugh:

The three man crew who came to move us out included a locally-hired member who could not accompany the crew on the move in as it included an overnight stay. Rather than send another guy from the London branch for the move in, the remaining two soldiered bravely on and ended up working two very long days.

Three weeks later, when I returned to the old quarter to march out, the unloaded extra packing materials were still there making the place look untidy.

Agility's part was well played, the sub-contractor's less so.

[Jumping_Jack]

....boxes gone..yay!

[WPH]

Just moved back from the US but still awaiting UB. I must admit that it all seems a little confusing and I heard of lots of problems other people were having.

My experience so far has been quite positive. My entitlement is 10.25 cubic meters. The estimator said we were only going to need around 6 cubic meters but he had seriously underestimated - fortunately we hadn't gone out and bought more stuff! The company turned up on the day with two large crates, which I measured at 11.3 cubic meters total. They proceeded to fill them with my stuff and bulked out the remaining space (approx 1 m) with empty boxes. I was obviously concerned that I may be charged for being over the limit but couldn't understand how I could be accountable for the size of crate that they chose to bring to my address.

Anyway, I got an email today stating that my UB totalled 8.75 cubic meters and told me when it would arrive in the UK (12 Nov having been collected 12 Sep). Frustrating that the estimators can be so wildly inaccurate and that it doesn't appear to be clear how the space you've used is calculated. Also not good that the new Agility contract ships by Sea rather than the previous contract by Air. But overall, no major complaints from me, that said, I haven't actually got my stuff yet!!!