FEDERATION
ACCOMMODATION MATTERS
by Stan Brathwaite T
he RAF Families Federation continues to monitor progress of the Service Family Accommodation
(SFA) contract with CarillionAmey (CA) and month-on-month we are receiving fewer requests from families for assistance or advice. This could be seen as a very positive indicator that the level of service CA is providing is getting better – or that you may just feel it’s not worth complaining about poor performance. Well, it is! We work with DIO and our fellow Federations to hold CA to account and have numerous cases where we have changed behaviour for the better. So please, please do continue to let us know your views.
Overseas We also continue to gather your evidence and field your SFA and Single Living Accommodation (SLA) concerns from all overseas locations and from those returning to the UK. Countries where we have received issues from in the past 12 months are the
USA, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Italy; sadly our meagre budget does not allow us to visit all these locations to see for ourselves (Yet)! We collate the information and speak with the relevant organisations and it’s fair to say that we have helped to achieve some improvements to the quality of service in a number of places. However, it can take time to achieve that, so please keep sending us the evidence we need to help you.
CAAS Update The CAAS programme is on track to start on 01 Apr 2016.
By now some of you may have been selected to have a Combined Accommodation Assessment Service survey conducted on your SFA. Do not worry if you were not selected for this survey. The grading of your SFA will be determined by similar properties on your unit and other archive details. All SFA will receive a letter detailing the estimated grade for charge. More importantly it will provide a wealth of information on why the grading system
is changing and why it will be much fairer than the current outdated and discredited system it replaces. The letter will also provide you with the estimated increase or decrease in the charges that you can expect to have to budget for in April 2016. Note that you cannot challenge this grading at this time – it’s only an estimate to help you plan. However, starting in the autumn everyone in SFA will receive a second, related letter that will confirm the actual Band for Charge, and it is at this point that you can challenge that banding if you
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Envoy Autumn 2015
www.raf-ff.org.uk
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