Contractor CarillionAmey and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) have been blasted for providing appalling housing conditions to defence forces and their families in a new report by MPs.
The report, by the Public Accounts Committee, claims housing for Britain’s armed forces is so bad that families often have to live without such basics as heating and hot water and both the MoD and contractor were “badly letting down service families”.
Meg Hillier MP, who chairs the committee, said: “Forces’ families are suffering because of poor service under a contract agreed on terms that were wrong-headed from the start.”
Currently the MoD manages 50,000 properties for personnel, who are offered subsidised housing. The committee said it was right that the MoD was considering terminating the contract with CarillionAmey.
Among the findings of the report were:
- A service family returned from overseas to be allocated a house with broken pipes under the kitchen sink, an unusable gas hob and a dirty oven, a filthy entrance area and an active wasps’ nest in the shed.
- The wife of a serviceman and his family, who were living in damp and mouldy conditions, spent up to two hours a day on the telephone for eight weeks and was not offered an alternative home, despite some being available locally.
- A service family was left without hot water and heating for several weeks, despite telling CarillionAmey they had a seven-week-old baby and a four-year-old.
- A serviceman said a lack of routine maintenance to his family’s property resulted in significant structural damage which took over a year for CarillionAmey to repair.
Hillier added: “Responsibility for this lies with both CarillioAmey and the government. The MoD seriously misjudged CarillionAmey’s capacity to deliver a service which CarillionAmey accepts it was not equipped to deliver.”
Defence minister Mark Lancaster said: “The service our personnel and their families were getting from CarillionAmey was simply not good enough. They deserve much better, which is why we took swift action once the problems became apparent.
“CarillionAmey rightly apologised and developed an aggressive plan of improvements. Progress is being made, but we will absolutely not hesitate to take further action if they don’t deliver.”
CarillionAmey managing director Daniel Easthope said its housing service was now “performing well”.
