Military accommodation, a few unpalatable facts.
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Military accommodation, a few unpalatable facts.
Disgusting
“Barring Armed Forces members from contributing to the inquiry shows a worrying lack of transparency from the MoD at a time of plummeting satisfaction with service life,” say Labour in a statement received by the UK Defence Journal.
Further highlighting the situation, Luke Pollard, Labour Shadow Minister for the Armed Forces, stated:
“The Conservatives are failing our troops and their families with the shocking state of service housing. With satisfaction with service life plummeting, it is outrageous that instead of fixing leaky and mouldy homes, the Defence Secretary is silencing personnel and trying to sweep their problems under the rug.”
In light of these recent developments, Pollard mentioned Labour’s ongoing proposal to introduce an Armed Forces Commissioner. The envisioned role of the commissioner would be to champion the rights of Armed Forces personnel, ensuring a better quality of life and giving them a resounding independent voice in matters concerning their welfare.
Recent statistics further underscore the gravity of the accommodation issue:
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/gran...ing-personnel/
The UK Government has come under sharp criticism from the Labour Party for its decision to prevent serving Armed Forces personnel from testifying in a Defence Sub-Committee inquiry regarding service accommodation.
This move, attributed to Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, has raised questions surrounding transparency within the Ministry of Defence (MoD).“Barring Armed Forces members from contributing to the inquiry shows a worrying lack of transparency from the MoD at a time of plummeting satisfaction with service life,” say Labour in a statement received by the UK Defence Journal.
Further highlighting the situation, Luke Pollard, Labour Shadow Minister for the Armed Forces, stated:
“The Conservatives are failing our troops and their families with the shocking state of service housing. With satisfaction with service life plummeting, it is outrageous that instead of fixing leaky and mouldy homes, the Defence Secretary is silencing personnel and trying to sweep their problems under the rug.”
In light of these recent developments, Pollard mentioned Labour’s ongoing proposal to introduce an Armed Forces Commissioner. The envisioned role of the commissioner would be to champion the rights of Armed Forces personnel, ensuring a better quality of life and giving them a resounding independent voice in matters concerning their welfare.
Recent statistics further underscore the gravity of the accommodation issue:
- As per MoD records, 40% of personnel residing in Single Living Accommodation are housed in the lowest quality lodgings, labelled as grade 4. Alarmingly, over 4,300 personnel live in housing of such substandard condition that the MoD does not levy any rent, classifying it as below grade 4.
- According to the latest MoD data, 40% of tri-service personnel have expressed dissatisfaction with the overarching standard of their Single Living Accommodation.
- Furthermore, a report from The Telegraph indicates that since April 2022, military families residing in Service Family Accommodation have been compensated over £1m in shopping vouchers due to issues arising from subpar housing.
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My local MP writes that he is a member of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee and is now chairing a Sub-Committee review on Service Accommodation. He advises that anyone currently living in service accommodation who wishes to share their experiences with the defence sub-committee should do so through this link: https://committees.parliament.uk/cal...evidence/3195/.
He has also stated that he is deeply disappointed that the Ministry of Defence has refused to allow serving personnel the dispensation to contribute to this Military Housing Sub-Committee. He strongly believes this to be the wrong decision and has written to the Secretary of State, Grant Shapps MP, to make this clear to him and to request for this decision to be reviewed. Nevertheless, he advises that the Sub-Committee is still accepting submissions of evidence from service personnel and their families, but these submissions will be anonymous and treated confidentially.
He has also stated that he is deeply disappointed that the Ministry of Defence has refused to allow serving personnel the dispensation to contribute to this Military Housing Sub-Committee. He strongly believes this to be the wrong decision and has written to the Secretary of State, Grant Shapps MP, to make this clear to him and to request for this decision to be reviewed. Nevertheless, he advises that the Sub-Committee is still accepting submissions of evidence from service personnel and their families, but these submissions will be anonymous and treated confidentially.
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My local MP writes that he is a member of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee and is now chairing a Sub-Committee review on Service Accommodation. He advises that anyone currently living in service accommodation who wishes to share their experiences with the defence sub-committee should do so through this link: https://committees.parliament.uk/cal...evidence/3195/.
He has also stated that he is deeply disappointed that the Ministry of Defence has refused to allow serving personnel the dispensation to contribute to this Military Housing Sub-Committee. He strongly believes this to be the wrong decision and has written to the Secretary of State, Grant Shapps MP, to make this clear to him and to request for this decision to be reviewed. Nevertheless, he advises that the Sub-Committee is still accepting submissions of evidence from service personnel and their families, but these submissions will be anonymous and treated confidentially.
He has also stated that he is deeply disappointed that the Ministry of Defence has refused to allow serving personnel the dispensation to contribute to this Military Housing Sub-Committee. He strongly believes this to be the wrong decision and has written to the Secretary of State, Grant Shapps MP, to make this clear to him and to request for this decision to be reviewed. Nevertheless, he advises that the Sub-Committee is still accepting submissions of evidence from service personnel and their families, but these submissions will be anonymous and treated confidentially.
Shame on them.
Please do not drift this thread to other matters langleybaston!
From PoliticsHome:
Robert Courts, MP for Witney and chair of the Defence sub-committee, confirmed on Friday that Shapps had decided not to allow serving personnel to contribute to the investigation.Courts told PoliticsHome he felt the decision was “fundamentally wrong”, and claimed his department has misunderstood the purpose of “what the select committee does”.
“The standard rule is that members of the Armed Forces don't talk to politicians, they go into the chain of command,” he said.
“The difference here is that you need to hear from them, because you’re talking about their day-to-day lived experience," he added.
“This is a massive problem, it means you're not going to be hearing, in the depth and the detail that you would like, from the people who actually experienced this accommodation.
“It's wrong, because what it's going to do is to make the job of parliamentary scrutiny harder.”
The MoD found the level of satisfaction for standard family accommodation fell from 52 per cent in 2022 to 46 per cent this year. Meanwhile the quality of maintenance repair work to properties dropped from 37 per cent in 2015 to 19 per cent this year.
Courts said the decision to block service personnel from speaking to the select committee will not prevent MPs from hearing from representative bodies, who will pass the information from serving members anonymously.
“It’s not going to stop us doing it. We're going to do it anyway. We've heard from the Families Federation, representative bodies, we'll hear from others," he added.
“If they haven't been given permission to talk to a select committee, then if they do it anyway, but they do it anonymously, then that will go into our work. We can't publish it, but it will still go in to informing our work."
A major problem, Courts claimed, was the ability for the armed forces to retain exisiting staff. The level of personnel in the UK armed forces dropped by 3.3 per cent from 2021 to 2023. A separate MoD report found the proportion of army personnel who plan to leave the services has risen to 24 per cent.
Courts told PoliticsHome he believed it was essential for the government to address issues of retention as well as recruitment in the armed forces.
“People tend to think about how to get new people into the armed forces. The far bigger issue is how you stop with leaving, because they are incredibly expensive to train," he explained.
“If you are in the armed forces, and you are very highly trained, you can get paid more in 'Civvy Street', and your family accommodation is better," he added, referring to the colloquial term given to work outside the armed forces.
"If you get a problem with mould, or your heating, then you just call some civilian sector. You're losing the people, we need to defend our country."
He added that army personnel are not expected to be "pampered" but do expect a "decent standard" of living.
The MoD has been contacted for a response.
From PoliticsHome:
Robert Courts, MP for Witney and chair of the Defence sub-committee, confirmed on Friday that Shapps had decided not to allow serving personnel to contribute to the investigation.Courts told PoliticsHome he felt the decision was “fundamentally wrong”, and claimed his department has misunderstood the purpose of “what the select committee does”.
“The standard rule is that members of the Armed Forces don't talk to politicians, they go into the chain of command,” he said.
“The difference here is that you need to hear from them, because you’re talking about their day-to-day lived experience," he added.
“This is a massive problem, it means you're not going to be hearing, in the depth and the detail that you would like, from the people who actually experienced this accommodation.
“It's wrong, because what it's going to do is to make the job of parliamentary scrutiny harder.”
The MoD found the level of satisfaction for standard family accommodation fell from 52 per cent in 2022 to 46 per cent this year. Meanwhile the quality of maintenance repair work to properties dropped from 37 per cent in 2015 to 19 per cent this year.
Courts said the decision to block service personnel from speaking to the select committee will not prevent MPs from hearing from representative bodies, who will pass the information from serving members anonymously.
“It’s not going to stop us doing it. We're going to do it anyway. We've heard from the Families Federation, representative bodies, we'll hear from others," he added.
“If they haven't been given permission to talk to a select committee, then if they do it anyway, but they do it anonymously, then that will go into our work. We can't publish it, but it will still go in to informing our work."
A major problem, Courts claimed, was the ability for the armed forces to retain exisiting staff. The level of personnel in the UK armed forces dropped by 3.3 per cent from 2021 to 2023. A separate MoD report found the proportion of army personnel who plan to leave the services has risen to 24 per cent.
Courts told PoliticsHome he believed it was essential for the government to address issues of retention as well as recruitment in the armed forces.
“People tend to think about how to get new people into the armed forces. The far bigger issue is how you stop with leaving, because they are incredibly expensive to train," he explained.
“If you are in the armed forces, and you are very highly trained, you can get paid more in 'Civvy Street', and your family accommodation is better," he added, referring to the colloquial term given to work outside the armed forces.
"If you get a problem with mould, or your heating, then you just call some civilian sector. You're losing the people, we need to defend our country."
He added that army personnel are not expected to be "pampered" but do expect a "decent standard" of living.
The MoD has been contacted for a response.
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FWIW I remember the new SLAM blocks at Marham being built in 2007-ish. I can't believe what I have heard recently about the airmen not having hot water etc. It is a disgrace!
Trying to gag those with first hand experience seems a tad unwise, suggests someone’s heart is not really in to finding out how bad things have become.
Stand by for an uplifting message telling us how much has been spent to get things into the current parlous state and how much will be earmarked but never spent on trying to improve anything other than the shareholders’ dividends and the directors’ bonuses.
Stand by for an uplifting message telling us how much has been spent to get things into the current parlous state and how much will be earmarked but never spent on trying to improve anything other than the shareholders’ dividends and the directors’ bonuses.
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Does the UK have no other method of investigation aside from direct testimony before a sub-committee? In the U.S., the Congress has the General Accounting Office and the Congressional Research Service at its disposal to conduct audits and investigations. As an example, the GAO just published an unflattering report on U.S. military housing. Such a report likely will generate the basis for discussion when senior U.S. military leadership appears before Congress.
I suspect this process is just window dressing to cover up an already well known and well documented failure to look after our people properly. Each unit could document their problems and report it up the chain but eventually it would hit the wall that is contractorisation where cost saving takes precedence over service delivery. This process is no respecter of rank either. My daughter is married to a Wg Cdr, they spent most of last winter without heating or an adequate hot water supply.
