H o u s i n g
Is this the Worst Job in NATO?
As Air Commodore Peter Hibberd leaves his appointment as Defence Estates Director Operations Housing, on retirement, he offers a personal view.
W
hen I took up my post in July 2006 I knew things were not good but…
Almost all my career has been focussed on delivering support to personnel in the front line. I enjoy the thought that something I have done has made someone else’s life easier. I get upset, personally, when I am responsible for letting people down. In my current job most complaints that I see – and there have been many – reflect the fact that my organisation has let someone’s family down.
All of my staff, and those of our commercial partners, want to do a good job for Service families. None of us have enjoyed seeing the adverse coverage of our business. We know we have made mistakes – and that is why we follow up every complaint to see what lessons we can learn. At times in the last 2 years the volume of work has been so great that we have not done well at following up on correspondence and this has compounded the issue.
But it has not all been bad. We have done a lot of work from which many of you will have benefited. In the last 2 years, across the 3 Services, we have upgraded over 1,800 houses; in the last year we have spent some £50M improving SFA, all while doing some
17,810 moves in and 17,930 moves out. In 2006 Modern Housing Solutions (MHS) completed 191,149 separate response repairs; in 2007 they completed 213,363 – and in the last 6 months the vast amount of that work has been within the planned timescales. I think that is real progress.
The move to Prime Contracting for repairs and the transition to Housing Information Centres brought massive changes in the way my organisation and occupants need to interact. In hindsight I accept that we did not communicate well enough with families. We did not prepare you for the changes as well as we might have done. So we have all shared frustrations over the last 2 years. But the recent feedback I have received from all 3 Families Federations suggests that things are getting better.
My colleagues in MHS acknowledge that they got off to a disastrous start; they have worked tirelessly to improve their service delivery. Their performance statistics are now very good but I know many of you still think the service is poor. That is why we have invited the Families Federations to undertake independent audits of those statistics. I have never doubted that Prime Contracting and the Housing Information Centres were sound concepts and I remain convinced that, as we learn from our mistakes and you, as occupants, learn to understand the new ways of working, the overall improvement will continue.
The Housing Prime Contract for England and Wales, held by MHS, is a maintenance contract. It has been my job to secure additional funding to upgrade housing – and that will remain a real challenge because Housing has to compete within the Defence Budget along with pay, allowances and equipment. Defence Estates will continue to do the best that it can with the money we are allocated.
Handing over to Elaine West. 24 Summer 2008
A full upgrade (re-wiring, new kitchen and bathroom and perhaps a new heating system)
can cost around £60,000 per house; the money soon runs out. In the coming years we will have an extra £30M annually to invest in housing upgrades – so that represents a real improvement.
While the press have enjoyed reporting how many houses we have ‘below’ standard, the reality is that 95% of our stock is at either Standard 1 or 2 for condition. In my view Standard 2 for condition is really not bad. Of course, as occupants many of you are less worried about condition and more concerned about grade for charge. Some of you do not want to live in our better houses because you would rather pay a lower charge. And some of you pay very little for some good houses because of environmental issues such as remoteness or noise. I would ask you to think about what you pay – and then think what you would find for the same money on the open market.
In concluding perhaps I could offer a few thoughts on how you can help us to improve housing. Arrange a pre-move out visit. Housing Officers do not want to raise charges against you – it causes extra work and means that it takes us longer to get the house ready for the next occupant. When you move out make sure that the garden is tidy, the garage is empty and the cooker is clean. Tell us as soon as you know you are posted. That means we can allocate your house to someone else and allow them to plan accordingly. The reason you might have to wait for an address could be that one of your colleagues has not told us that they are leaving. And finally, look after your house while you are in it. If everyone follows these few simple rules everyone will benefit.
This has been the toughest job I have had, but I am sure there are worse jobs in NATO. I do regret that we have let some of you down but I know that many of you have had some great work done. There remains more to be done and I know that my successor, Air Commodore Elaine West, will do all she can to continue that progress.
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