If serving unaccompanied you will be entitled to SSSA provided that:
- You intend to spend at least 4 nights per week there as a matter of routine (excepting duty nights away).
- Your family home is more than 50 miles or 1.5 hours away (not a problem for you!)
- You do not own or rent a property within 45 minutes’ commute by public transport of the duty location. If you are the landlord of such a property, you will be expected to evict the tenant at the end of their lease and live there yourself... you will only be entitled to SSSA for the interim period. I know someone who ended up daily commuting over 200 miles to MOD because he owned a buy-to-let in south London and was not aware of this restriction when he took the posting.
Individual costs are roughly what you’d pay in a Mess: a couple of hundred per month if unmarried, nothing if married unaccompanied... cue the usual argument.
You will get a small unreceipted allowance to cover the additional cost of feeding yourself in London over and above the cost of dining in a Mess (FIA). Eat frugally and set it against an occasional after-work pint, one of the best bits of a MOD job.
As you won’t be driving to MOD, your HDT allowance usually goes on a Travelcard from the zone in which your SSSA lies. If you will use other means (bike or river bus) you can ask for an allowance toward that instead. You will pay ~10% monthly personal contribution.
You’ll also get GYH as with any other unaccompanied posting. If you intend to drive your weekly commute then SSSA location and car parking will be important, and get used to late Sunday or
very early Monday travel! Check out the upcoming expansion of the ULEZ too as you might need to upgrade to a cleaner car. If your weekly commute is by train NB that you won’t be entitled to station car park charges or rail tickets - just the GYH. Ask your boss if you can arrive at work on the first off-peak train on a Monday to save a small fortune... if they say no, get the last train on a Sunday night.
As for what you can expect: sqn ldrs and above are entitled to a 1-bedroom flat, although you can opt to share a multi-bedroom property (the agency will match-make unless you do the work for them: see below). Some choose to do this as you get more space, and with sensible planning (and cleanliness!) you can use each others’ bedrooms to host families/visitors when they’re away for the weekend.
Unfortunately the old days of choosing from a shortlist of 3 properties have gone: you’ll get one choice, take it or leave it. You can express preferences (eg for location, car parking, commuting time, sharing) but the agency will be looking to fill vacancies in its portfolio rather than satisfy your every last desire. There is a (unpublished) cap rate and you can tick a box saying that you’re happy to pay extra if they find something above it that meets your preferences.
Worst case, you end up 45 minutes away by Tube (the maximum the agency is allowed) on the far side of town from home, wondering why you aren’t daily commuting. Best case, a 10 minute walk from the Pimlico/Westminster boundary. Both are pretty rare though: 30 minutes’ commute is typical. You can take the luck out of it using your network to find someone in a reasonable gaff whose flat mate has been posted, or is about to be posted themselves (maybe your predecessor?): if you offer the agency a ready-made solution they may just give you it.
If you do take the job, contact the Joint Services Admin Unit (London) and ask for a Word version of the SSSA application form, which you can preview in the JSP (link below). There is obviously a lot more small print to deal with in there but it is a well-trodden path and JSAU(L) know it well. Good luck... and ask your predecessor to put feelers out for SSSA options!
JSPs:
Accommodation,
Allowances