Thread: Forces accomdation - General speaks out.

Originally Posted by Stonker

I hope people posting their horror stories on here are replicatiing them on the BBC web page as well.(sorry I haven't a link to post - not yet anyway)
quote]

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thre...602&#paginator

I dunno if the BBC notify you 'you're comment posted/not posted'.

I heard on the R4 evening news that this story has generated the single biggest response ever (or, maybe in the last year). Either way - it's a busy board: for good or ill, it's stirring people up.

131 pages with 2031 comments so far!

Clueless civvies seem to have been put in their place by a Purple majority.

A bit disappointing that even on the BBC comment page there is already a divide between all 3 arms, pads and singlies!

Originally Posted by hackle

BBC 'Listen Again' link to the item on Thursday's Today programme:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/li...y_20070104.ram

Includes excerpt from Gen Viggers' TV interview; excellent interview with anonymous service wife at Brize Norton; and interview with myself, speaking as Chairman of the new British Armed Forces Federation.

You need RealPlayer to listen on that link. If required we can email an mp3 version - you'll have to join BAFF first ;)

Thanks for all the great support today - especially to today's membership applicants!

Douglas Young

hackle,
Well done to you and BAFF for making this the lead news story over the past two days. I just hope now that the MoD have admitted that 49% of their estate is substandard (BBC 10 O'clock news last night) that something gets done.

Originally Posted by Priam

Originally Posted by Stonker

I hope people posting their horror stories on here are replicatiing them on the BBC web page as well.(sorry I haven't a link to post - not yet anyway)
quote]

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thre...602&#paginator

I dunno if the BBC notify you 'you're comment posted/not posted'.

I heard on the R4 evening news that this story has generated the single biggest response ever (or, maybe in the last year). Either way - it's a busy board: for good or ill, it's stirring people up.

131 pages with 2031 comments so far!

Clueless civvies seem to have been put in their place by a Purple majority.

A bit disappointing that even on the BBC comment page there is already a divide between all 3 arms, pads and singlies!

That should not be a surprise: least of all the different apsirations/expectations of young singlies and pads with kids.

As to dealing with the maintenance of single soldiers accom - am I out of date, or is that still a single-service matter? If it remains a single-service matter, then:

a. Serving Snr Offirs should be catching their share of the flak for allowing the situation to decline as it so clearly has.
b. It ought to be easier to get a grip of it.

Originally Posted by Winstanley

Come on chaps, let's cut to the chase! Yes, we all know that there are mongy, mangy soldiers out there who would live in s*** even if offered a place in paradise. What do you expect when the Army insists on recruiting from sink estates in deprived areas (to keep wages down?).

Winstanley,

Which planet are you from?

PAW

PS Write note to yourself: 'Must stop reading the Guardian and Socialist Worker'.

The Times has a 2 page spread on accommodation horror stories, the efforts of AFF and the Annington sell-off:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...532197,00.html

Growing army of soldiers' wives go to war over their squalid homes
Jane Wheatley

Burst boilers, faulty electrics and leaky roofs - our correspondent looks through the keyhole at service quarters that embarrass the nation


Caroline Perham, a soldier’s wife, followed the removal van as it turned into a crescent of houses towards the family’s new home, their seventh in 11 years. The van stopped outside No 14, a smart new house with sloping roof, solar panels and French doors opening to a terrace. Her heart lifted. Army housing is a lottery — you don’t know what to expect. Compared with some of their previous homes, this one looked gorgeous.
Once inside, she discovered that the bathroom had no running water, the radiator leaked and the toilet didn’t flush. There was water on the floor of the downstairs lavatory and, when the kettle and toaster were plugged in, the fuses blew. There was only one control dial on the gas cooker, which had to be moved to operate each burner. It was not the right dial. There were no numbers on it, and it was frighteningly easy to leave the gas on.



“The estate warden came round and I’m stood there with my three-year-old saying, ‘You can’t leave me like this’.� He told her to call Modern Housing Solutions, the MoD organisation responsible for maintenance and repairs.

Mrs Perham, who has asked that we do not use her real name, said that seven gas engineers arrived in four months. “Each one leaves saying, ‘You need new dials’, but never comes back. I spent the first six months in that house on the phone trying to get things repaired.�

Her story is typical, according to Rosie Brown, a commander’s wife and housing specialist with the Army Families Federation (www.army.mod.uk/aff). Mrs Brown applied for the post after struggling to get repairs done on her own married quarters. “I thought, if it’s like this for me, a senior officer’s wife with 22 years’ experience, what must it be like for some young soldier’s wife?� she said.

She soon found out. In the first week she listened to a litany of woes from women at the end of their tether, many of them in tears, their husbands away in Iraq or Afghanistan. There were tales of dirty, damp houses with no heating, burst boilers, gas leaks and faulty electrics. One wife was admitted to hospital after suffering an electric shock; another, whose husband was serving in Bosnia for six months, complained of cracks in the walls so wide that she could feel the breeze: “It feels as if my house is splitting in half,� she said.

One soldier told Mrs Brown that after 22 years of service he had despaired of “this quartering debacle� and was transferring to the Australian Army. An officer’s wife wrote: “I have made a commitment to live with and follow my husband around the world and we rely on army housing to be in a respectable state. I am not sure how much longer I want him to be part of an organisation that places so little value on our standard of living.�

That, says Mrs Brown, goes to the heart of the matter: home is often the only stable thing in an army family’s life. Waiting six months for repairs in a two-year posting is unacceptable.

Within two months of starting, Mrs Brown was addressing startled chiefs of staff at the Ministry of Defence. The military covenant, she reminded them crisply, stated that soldiers called upon to make personal sacrifices in the service of the nation could in return expect that they and their families would be valued and respected. That covenant was being broken daily.

Mrs Brown says that for months there has been no money for any new work. “A boiler that needs replacing is patched over and over again, spare parts and call-out charges costing five times the price of a new one.�

Shortage of funding for an army that has been operational for ten years — in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan — has meant a choice between body armour and new ovens, she says. “But war is no excuse: on the contrary, it is all the more reason for families to be looked after properly. A soldier facing dangers abroad does not want to be worrying about the boiler blowing up at home.�

When Mrs Perham’s husband phoned her on her mobile phone at 10 o’clock one night from Bosnia, she didn’t tell him that she was sitting in her car outside the house with their six-month-old baby because she had smelt gas after a visit from a plumber and had been ordered to leave. “I pretended that I was safely at home with the baby tucked up in bed,� she says. “I didn’t want him to worry.�

Yesterday’s outpouring of anguish from families after Lieutenant-General Freddie Vigger, the Army’s personnel chief, criticised the squalid housing conditions is unprecedented, Mrs Brown says, and a measure of how bad things have become.

She says: “The virtue of army families has always been: crack on, take whatever is thrown at you, but that is part of the problem Â* we have been our own worst enemy.

“Wives have no voice — we are not tenants. We are ‘allowed’ to live in our quarters under licence from the Secretary of State, but my husband is the licensee. I have no rights, no ombudsman, I can’t sack the plumber and get another one.�

Continues over another 2 pages...

This one made me laugh...

Added: Thursday, 4 January, 2007, 16:32 GMT 16:32 UK

The goverment need a good skiffing!

Major Major, Hannover

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homea...983488,00.html

MoD admits serious housing problems

· Senior officer adds his voice to criticisms
· Websites show cracks, mildew and broken pipes

Richard Norton-Taylor
Friday January 5, 2007
The Guardian


The Ministry of Defence admitted yesterday that there were serious housing problems for military personnel but warned there was no "quick fix".

The MoD - Britain's biggest property manager, with 49,000 houses and 150,000 "single units" - said: "Improving accommodation is a constant challenge. As the newest is opened, the oldest needs renewing." It insisted 95% of family accommodation was rated "good" or better.

It was responding to comments by Lieutenant General Freddie Viggers, the army's adjutant general responsible for personnel. He reflected disaffection among senior ranks when he told the BBC: "There is still too much accommodation which is of a poor standard, old, and not modern in the way it's fitted.

"It's one of the key issues for me in giving our soldiers and their families what they deserve in return for that they do for us. So our duty now is to fight our corner to get what they deserve."
His intervention - at a time when soldiers are being stretched in intensive operations in Afghanistan and Iraq - was prompted by increasing evidence of poor standards of accommodation. Pictures of homes and barracks with mildew, broken pipes and cracked walls, are appearing on websites.

Jennifer James, the mother of a young soldier, said: "He complains about the smell, he complains about the puddles of water on the floor from the leaky toilets, and just wishes he could get out."

The wife of a serviceman said the state of the 1950s prefabs at RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, was one of the reasons her husband was leaving. Speaking anonymously to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, she said: "I hope the powers that be sit up and take notice of this."

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, whose constituency includes Brize Norton, said more money should be invested through private finance initiative projects. "The Conservative party is going to bring together a whole forces families' manifesto, because they do so much for us and we should do more for them."

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, accused the government of hypocrisy."Service accommodation has been badly neglected for years by both Conservative and Labour governments."

Derek Twigg, the junior defence minister, retorted: "We've spent £700m last year in improving service accommodation. We recognise the need to improve it." He will sign a £300m contract for the second phase of a £1bn single living accommodation project next month.

More significant than the party political argument is the willingness of senior army officers to speak out. In his first interview since taking up his post last summer, General Sir Richard Dannatt, the new head of the army, made it clear to the Guardian that he was deeply concerned about the state of some army barracks.

Major General Richard Shirreff, commander of British troops in southern Iraq, has warned thecountry needed "to understand the quality work done by these courageous men and women only happens if these people are properly supported back home in terms of training, infrastructure, barracks, accommodation".

General Sir Mike Jackson, the former head of the army, said in his Dimbleby lecture last month that some accommodation was "frankly shaming".

Douglas Young, chairman of the newly formed and unofficial British Armed Forces Federation , welcomed the generals' comments but said that "it is a central MoD responsibility, a government thing".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...05/navy405.xml

MoD trying to combat low quality housing
By Thomas Harding
Last Updated: 3:03am GMT 05/01/2007

The Ministry of Defence has admitted to "serious problems" with soldiers' accommodation, but says it is working to upgrade them.

After reports that prisoners were housed in better conditions than many soldiers, the MoD yesterday conceded that 60 per cent of accommodation for single soldiers was "sub-standard". While there was no "quick-fix solution", £1 billion was to be spent on single living accommodation.

More than £5 billion will be spent on upgrading military housing over the next decade.

advertisementWith 49,000 houses and 150,000 single bedrooms, the MoD is the biggest property manager in Britain. But it said the housing was spread over a vast area, making it difficult to manage. Improving accommodation was a constant challenge — "like painting the Forth Bridge, it never actually stops because as the newest accommodation is opened, the oldest needs renewing".

The MoD added: "We're working hard to deal with that which isn't up to the high standards we set."

The wife of one serviceman said housing at RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, was one reason her husband was leaving the military. Speaking anonymously to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, she said the 1950s prefabs were in "quite a bad condition", adding: "This Government is losing highly-qualified personnel hand over fist."

The Tory leader David Cameron, whose Witney constituency includes Brize Norton, said more should be done for military families. He told Today: "The Conservative Party is going to bring together a whole forces families' manifesto to make sure we do better for our families, because they do so much for us and, frankly, we should do more for them."

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell accused the Government of hypocrisy over its treatment of service personnel. He said: "It is hypocritical to hail the professionalism and commitment of our armed forces while failing to look after them properly

Originally Posted by Moosaca

Bring back 'Changing Rooms', we want Charlie!!!!!. Why not contract them, they can revamp a quarter in less time then it takes to open a new 'HELP' line at MOD!

BFBS had an equivalent programme, headed by a marvellously daffy lady I had the pleasure of meeting. They did a makeover of some SLA in Roberts Bks in Osnabruck a few years ago......amazing what you can do with

A) some budget
B) x imperial galls of paint and a few metres of MDF.

(Although it would be interesting to hear the views of those living in that block now.)

There was also in the Army briefly a LAND directive to all PROMs called

SLASH standing for

Single
Living
Accommodation
Self
Help


The IDEA behind the SLASH initiative from HQ LAND, was that IF people living in the block wanted to voluntarily spend some time painting/refurbishing their own living quarters THEN the PROM/Site rep was to enable this with whatever assistance they could, ie paint and materials and advice. IIRC, it was limited to surface work: any electrical/plumbing etc still had to be done by an authorised tradesman, to comply with H&S and Bldg Regs etc.

Sorry ? Never heard of it huh? well, that'll be cascade briefing for you......

Once upon a time, the condition for refurbing your SLA was that it should be allowed on the proviso that you returned it to original spec on march out eg that lovely Works Department magnolia.

As alluded to here and on the BBC board, I believe there is more scope for soldiers to help themselves a bit more in some areas.

It is worth ASKING , if within the troop you have skills and experience that you think could be put to use.

The key is, VOLUNTARY .

Not because the Quarter Bloke can't get any budget for it.

....and, no - an Army initiative from 2001 really doesn't merit a headline

" Steely eyed killers told to DIY....I'm a Tankie not a ruddy painter says Cpl of Horse "

more like:

" Squaddies ask why shouldn't we be allowed to DIY ? in red-tape storm for brass-hats....Parliament recalled....shock, horror...pic page 3 "


FWIW,

Lee Shaver

What personnel pay in rentals (to an unaccountable landlord) is detailed below, compared with 2004. The message is clear - above-inflation increases in charges across the board, many of them shocking.

http://www.official-documents.gov.uk.../6740/6740.pdf

Armed Forces Pay Review Body Report thirty fifth report 2006
Chapter 5 - accommodation and other charges.

As we have highlighted in previous years, the Defence Housing Executive (DHE) commitment to bring the core stock of SFA in Great Britain up to “Standard 1 for condition� by November 2005 was bandoned in 2002. Since then, no new target date has been set for the completion of the programme.

Translation - contrary to the statement of ministers, there is no government target date or programme for improving accommodation.

We note that funding has been made available to upgrade 600 SFA to “Standard 1 for condition� in 2005-06 and that MOD will continue to upgrade as many properties as possible against “other competing priorities�. We urge MOD to do all in its power to find the resources to
upgrade a greater number of properties each year. In evidence, MOD told us that £467 million had been spent on the SFA upgrade programme so far and it estimated that a further £650 million would be required to complete it. We note that this latter figure was given to us in 2002 as the cost of the whole upgrade programme in Great Britain.

From MOD’s evidence we are aware that nearly 59 per cent of the estimated long-term housing requirement is now at “Standard 1 for condition� and around a further 18,000 properties at “Standard 2 for condition�, that is, needing one or two elements to be refurbished to bring it up to “Standard 1 for condition�. Additionally, around 1,000 properties are below “Standard 2 for condition�.

Translation: 600 quarters out of 18,000 were allocated funding for upgrade in 2006.
Translation: The MOD do not have a clue as to the extent of the deficiencies in the housing stock and the total cost of remedial action.

In Germany, a 2001 survey indicated that over 99 per cent of SFA in Germany was below “Standard 1 for condition�....In Northern Ireland, just over 8 per cent of SFA is “Standard 1 for condition�.

Translation: If you thought the UK was bad....

MOD’s evidence shows that, at April 2005, 85 per cent of occupied SLA worldwide was below Grade 1 with 47 per cent at the lowest grade (Grade 4).

Translation: If you thought families' quarters were bad....

Recommendation 8: We recommend graduated increases to Service Family Accommodation rental charges from 1 April 2006. The resulting charges are shown in Tables 5.1 and 5.2.

Recommendation 9: We recommend graduated increases to Single Living
Accommodation charges from 1 April 2006. The resulting charges are shown in Table 5.3.

Translation: Personnel will be hit with increased accommodation charges for promised rather than actual improvements. The aim is to raise rents to the equivalent to the private sector, less a discount for the disadvantages of Service life (note the "X-factor" added to the military salary equates to 13%).

A comparison between 2004 and 2005 charges is below.

Total rent 2004 (Grade 1 by type - varies by size)
Service Families Accommodation £ per year

Officers Other Ranks
I 7,267 D 3,259
II 6,537 C 2,781
III 5,745 B 2,427
IV 4,380 A 1,832
V 3,577

SLA charges (Grade 2)

Major and above 1,562
Captain and below 1,270
Warrant Officer and SNCO 956
Corporal and below 537
New Entrant 423

Total rent 2005 (Grade 1 by type - varies by size)
Service Families Accommodation £ per year

Officers Other Ranks
I 8,180 (+12.6%) D 3,661 (+12%)
II 7,358 (+12.6%) C 3,106 (+11.7%)
III 6,468 (+12.6%) B 2,650 (+9.2%)
IV 4,964 (+13.3%) A 2,004 (+9.4%)
V 3,953 (+10.5%)

SLA charges (Grade 2)

Major and above 1,643 (+5.2%)
Captain and below 1,332 (+4.9%)
Warrant Officer and SNCO 1,004 (+5%)
Corporal and below 573 (+6.7%)
New Entrant 449 (+6.1%)

Frank Gardener was indeed TA.

He's a good guy.

Originally Posted by brettarider

Originally Posted by Goatman

The PROM also told me that it was costing them £2K to get a SINGLE double glazed window replaced.

And there lies a big part of the problem are the MoD actually getting best value? you can have a whole house done for that (normally 7 windows)
or is it the contractor calling the shots and charging what they like? the latter I suspect. Do the contractors have clauses/finance able penalties for failing SLA/targets etc/crap repairs?. Its about tme the MoD was stopped being seen as a charge what like like then double it organization .

<sigh>....Bretta the point of the dit was that the PROM was absolutely aware that it was a ridiculous price.....but the point to note is that at that time, MoD locally was (and very much still is) in competition with the civil market for work.....on the one hand you have people , quite rightly, demanding that
'this is intolerable - fix it immediately'
and on the other a civil construction industry that is struggling to meet the demands of a Government-driven housing boom in the South East ( er, which is where Aldershot is)

Oh, and for info and FWIW, the PROM in question wasn't some spotty undergrad (BA Media Studies) snivel serpent fresh out of Management school with no grasp of commercial reality: he was an LE Major(Retd) who had served in the same barracks as a crow when it was brand new .....


Le Chevre

I wonder how many service personnel in MQs (let alone civilians looking in) understand that they do not enjoy anything like the same rights of tenancy as civilians in rented accom (private or publicly owned).

As it was explained to me (in the early days of DHE, when I headed the 'residents association' for my patch), the Occupancy Licence you sign puts the MQ occupant in a position akin to that of an Hotel Room dweller: it leaves the standard of services and facilities to be delivered entirely at the discretion of the 'hotelier', and leaves the 'hotelier' free to evict the occupant at the drop of a hat - with no recourse for the occupant to grievance procedures.

The lady who explained it to me had recently joined DHE from the world of commercial Housing Associations, and made no secret of her contempt for the inward-looking, bureaucratic attitude of her bosses, and the entirely dysfunctional structure of the organisation that employed her.

I wonder if she's still in post. I hope so, but rather doubt it.

anyone ever had to stay at nescliffe? lol.

I love the spin the MOD Intranet is putting on the Accom subject....everytime i log onto the Defence Intranet Homepage there is a new pic of "new" SLA or SFA at the start of it.
At present is a pic of a very new house in Portsmouth! Before is a was a rather nice "alpine chalet" style block in Catterick!