Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the maintenance and repairs service provided by private contractors on the defence estate.

Improving Service accommodation is a priority for this Government.

The Armed Forces Continuous Attitude survey shows Service personnel have low levels of satisfaction with responses to requests for and the quality maintenance/repair work of Service Family Accommodation, and low levels of satisfaction with the general standard of Single Living Accommodation.

As a first step to improving Service life the Government will establish an Armed Forces Commissioner as a direct point of contact for Service personnel and their families, to raise issues including housing.

Within each built estate Future Defence Infrastructure Services (FDIS) contract, there is an embedded assurance and verification process to check the adequacy of the maintenance and repair service provided. The assessments are made against Acceptable Levels of Performance.

As part of the National Accommodation Management Services contract, Pinnacle is consistently delivering at or above the minimum Acceptable Level of Performance in all areas where they have sole responsibility for delivery. Performance has either improved or been maintained by both VIVO and Amey in the key areas of reactive maintenance timeframes, and against the Move-In Standard. more progress still needs to be made before both are consistently at or above the Acceptable Level of Performance across the board and to meet the needs of Service families.

All FDIS UK Built Estate suppliers are currently performing as a minimum at the Acceptable Level of Performance in all areas. Where performance falls short of that Acceptable Level of Performance, specific performance Rectification Plans are put in place to recover performance and any subsequent contractual performance withholds applied. Each Region manages this performance rectification with suppliers back to an acceptable level of performance with oversight from the Health Check Forum. In general, the levels of performance have been improving due to Supplier competence and experience building commensurate with contract maturity.