GovWire

Overview

Starting from March 2024, the MOD will begin introducing a new accommodation offer for our armed forces. Some of the changes will happen immediately, while others may only affect you when you are assigned to a new role or at the end of the three-year transition period.

The planned changes are intended to modernise accommodation entitlements, improve the standard of Single Living Accommodation, update the overseas accommodation offer and, overall, give our people more of a say in how they live.

What is happening as part of the New Accommodation Offer

The introduction of the New Accommodation Offer will lead to the following changes:

• Needs-based allocation: The starting point for allocation of family accommodation will be the size of the family, not rank, and Service personnel who have registered their relationship as an established long-term relationship will be entitled to accommodation on the same basis as those who are married or in a civil partnership. If you have children whose main home is elsewhere but they visit you for more than 80 nights a year, they will now count towards your accommodation entitlement. Even if you do not have a partner or children, you will be able to apply for family accommodation.
• Increased choice of family accommodation: There will be more flexibility to choose what type of home you want for yourself and your family, including going above or below your entitlement. This flexibility means that most personnel who previously had a rank-based entitlement will still be able to choose the same type of home as before, subject to availability. If they cannot, they will be offered transitional protection to a similar-sized property as before until the end of the three-year transition period.
• Transitional protection: If personnel experience a reduction in their entitlement as a result of the new offer, they will be eligible to transitional protection. This will give them access to a similar sized property to what they are current entitled to for a three-year transition period after the launch of the new offer on the 11 March 2024.
• Using the Private Rental Sector: Widening entitlement for family accommodation means we will reduce the number of empty Service Family Accommodation properties the MOD holds, but demand for family accommodation is likely to exceed the available Service Family Accommodation at some locations. In the long term decisions will be made about whether to build more Service Family Accommodation but, for now, where Service Family Accommodation is near capacity, you may be given the choice, or even asked, to use the local private rental sector. If you are placed into this route, you will be given guidance and various payments to cover the costs associated with renting and a contribution towards your monthly rent, adjusted for local housing costs. For Service personnel who are unable to source their own accommodation, a private rental property may be provided for them.
• Support for weekly commuters: If you live in Single Living Accommodation but your main home is elsewhere, you will be eligible to claim back the cost of your Single Living Accommodation up to a monthly cap. It does not matter whether you are in a relationship or not, what kind of relationship that is, or your age, only that you are maintaining a primary home elsewhere.
• New standards in Single Living Accommodation: A minimum standard for Single Living Accommodation has been agreed and we are already assessing the entire Single Living Accommodation estate to understand where rooms are currently failing to meet this. This will inform where investment is needed.
• Increased support to buy a home: We have already made Forces Help to Buy a permanent part of our accommodation policy and, under the New Accommodation Offer, we will offer further support for Service personnel becoming first time buyers through refunding up to 1,500 of their legal expenses.
• Improving the overseas accommodation offer: While the New Accommodation Offer will begin its roll out in the UK, we are already looking at how to roll out as much of it as possible overseas, beginning with pilots of needs-based accommodation at selected locations. Overseas accommodation policy will also be broken out from UK policy to make it easier to understand and allow it to consider the different realities of living in other countries (such as where air conditioning is more important than loft insulation).

Does the New Accommodation Offer apply to you

Everyone who lives in Service accommodation will eventually be covered by the New Accommodation Offer, but when it starts to apply to you will be linked to when you are next assigned or when your personal circumstance change. The transition period will end after three years, at which point any remaining personnel will be supported to transition to the new offer.

What do you need to do

More information on the application process will follow in due course.

Revised JSP 464

Tri-service accommodation regulations (TSARs) (JSP 464) are being revised and a new edition will come into effect from 11 March.

Parts 1 to 8 of JSP 464, Tri-service accommodation regulations, are available in draft in advance so that Service personnel can plan future accommodation decisions. These regulations will apply in the UK only from 11 Mar 2024; policy for personnel serving overseas will follow in due course.

Access Draft tri-service accommodation regulations (TSARs) (JSP 464) - March 2024.

Contact

For more information contact: People-Accom-ASC@mod.gov.uk