This makes me furious if it is true. Subsidised housing is a necessary part of service life for the stability it provides to the service people and their families who are posted at the behest of the service. And no - 'you knew about it when you joined up' is not a reason to remove this. Why are our masters not seeking to sternly counter these moves by highlighting the benefits of service housing and accepting that it
costs money to run a military. If they are scared to put their hands up and admit to a wrong decision made by their predecessors and suggest a course of action that benefits those it will affect then we are hypocrites to profess to any IIP tripe.
Jean Paul Getty said “
If it appreciates, buy it. If it depreciates, rent it.” Unless this is a far sighted move in advance of a predicted or planned property price crash (
Although this may have something to it - all perks chipped away - are these the signs?) they have surely made a very short sighted decision which is best rectified early.
I heard this morning that we are now irrevocably tied to the pay as you dine stuff as well. The company having discovered that the dining rooms make a loss rather than profit (and on a
7 year test contract; which idiot agreed to that?) have demanded the exclusive rights to all bars, tea-bars and shops on camp with the food operating as a loss-leader. I cannot in good conscience sit by and watch that happen. We need to robustly defend these institutions. None of them run at a loss (or indeed extra public cost on top of that that would be incurred anyway) and I cannot see how the service has any right to take away what so many people invest so much of their own valuable time in. When I raised this I was told that it was also felt that we spend too much time dealing with secondary duties.
Then DON'T ASSESS US ON THEM. We would end with higher prices, minimal control over our own mess and its functions, day to day running and pricing strategy. This is totally contrary to the original concept of a mess which was formed to benefit the members.
http://regimentalrogue.com/srsub/officers_mess.htm has some good words on the subject.
I think we need to express ourselves clearly and in reasoned terms to those at the helm of these initiatives to put across how damaging such moves would be. I cannot see any benefit to the process in my own mess and with a likely deadline of 2009 we need to make ourselves heard and soon.