29 November 2007 19:53

ANOTHER DAY, another damning report on government housing policy by the public accounts committee (PAC). The only compensation for minister at Communities and Local Government is that this time it's the Ministry of Defence getting it in the neck.

With devastating understatement, the PAC [download PDF here] describes the standard of much services living accommodation as leaving 'a lot to be desired'. Despite improvements half of the 110,000 bedspaces of single accommodation 19,000 (40%) of family houses are below standard. With the MoD planning to upgrade 900 houses a year, that means some families will have to wait 20 years. And mismanagement continues, with roofing projects cancelled to save money at the same time as schemes went ahead to build tennis courts.

Two weeks ago the PAC slammed the CLG as 'weak' in its handling of the Thames Gateway and Edward Leigh, the chairman of the committee, said it was 'manifestly not up to the job'. That unsurprisingly irked ministers and housing minister Yvette Cooper said on Tuesday - ahead of launching the delivery plan for the gateway today - that the report was 'hopelessly out of date'. 

Still to come is the PAC's follow-up to a critical report by the National Audit Office on housing market renewal pathfinders. Leigh said at the launch of the NAO report three weeks ago: 'Given its performance to date, it is hard to think of another programme which was trumpeted with such a fanfare, but which has hit so many wrong notes.'

Posted in MoD homes

14 September 2007 16:00

SOCIAL LANDLORDS struggling with central government dictats about their performance will struggle not to experience a feeling of schadenfreude today if they take time to digest the details of a select committee report into the Ministry of Defence's mismanagement of its stock of land and housing.

The report [go here to download it] details the 'appalling' standard of many MoD homes. In just one example, a battalion of the Royal Anglian Regiment has more comfortable accommodation in Afghanistan than it had in its barracks in England. But the report also reveals deep-rooted problems with maintenance, missed targets on empty homes and a failure to build enough new bedspaces. 

In response to the crisis, the MoD's Defence Estates is deploying heavy weaponry including a series of PFI contracts and prime contracting as well as 'improved planning, supply chain management, incentivisation, continuous improvement, economies of scale and partnering'. Some measures have been successful, some 'deeply disappointing'. Examples that will ring some bells with social landlords include:

• The controversial sale and rent-back of married quarters to Annington Estates in 1996 that left the private company with most of the benefits of soaring house prices rises and the MoD with the headache of maintenance. The finance director of Defence Estates told the committee that this was: 'Perhaps not a deal we would have done now, in that we maintain maintenance responsibility; if we were doing the deal today we would probably transfer that to the landlord.' 

• The proceeds from property sales going to the Treasury, not the MoD, so that they cannot be reinvested in accommodation and the MoD has no incentive to restructure its assets in the most cost-effective way.

• Maintenance targets being met by shelving more expensive works and targetting 'quick win' cheaper upgrades.

• Failure to meet targets on reducing the amount of empty property - the proportion actually increased to 13.9% in 2005/06.

• Problems with inadequate home ownership incentives and procedures for allowing service personnel to buy their own homes.

• 'A pretty terrible start' for the £100m housing prime contract - the maintenance contract for family accommodation - that led to the MoD paying an 'extraordinary' extra £20m to ensure an adequate service.

• 'Excessively cumbersome' maintenance contracts that removed the power to resolve disputes from local officers and managers 'in the name of efficiency' with nobody taking responsibilty or 'ownership' of the problem.

• Frequent disputes between contractors and client about the distinction between routine maintenance and improvements to the fabric of a building - for example, who is reponsible for repairs to a sash window.

All of which is enough to make social landlords feel quietly satisfied with their own performance - until they realise how much of what the government is demanding of them under its new homes programme depends on surplus land owned by, you guessed it, the MoD.

Posted in MoD homes