Spoke to a colleague this weekend who's heard about some possible plans for quarters. I wasn't too impressed!
Apparently, the government wants us all to own our own homes. So we'll get some sort of lump sum scheme whereby your salary's abated by X for Y years, then you get a lump sum of X x Y to help buy a house. Then, when you get posted, you'll get the current package to help cover the costs incurred. Bingo, everyone's happy, we all own houses, but we're not out of pocket. Quarters will go, or be reduced, because we don't want them, we all want to own our own homes.
Except this doesn't cover what I'm meant to do when the constant moves cost twice as much as I can reclaim, nor does it help when I'm posted from Lossiemouth to High Wycombe or Whitehall and can barely afford a parking space.
Apparently, the response to this was that if the move is prohibitively expensive, the money saved from doing away with quarters will fund upgrades in SLA; so I can just live in the mess.
Strikes me as madness. Yes, I like owning my own home, but I don't want to move every 3 years. I like the house I have and I look forward to living in it permanently after my next option point, so I don't want to sell it! I also dislike the alternative; if you keep your home in one place, who wants to spend their 30s and 40s living in messes? The current system works and is
necessary; I can still save up and buy a home, but at least when the military forces me to move, they can provide me with a house to put my family in so I can have some semblance of a normal life.
I don't want a mess to come home to, regardless of how much is spent improving it. I'd rather come home to my family!
