Hundreds of families had to wait months to move into their homes after the Ministry of Defence failed to fit their carpets. At least 700 properties had been empty for five months by August last year because they were awaiting carpets, the Commons Public Accounts Committee has revealed. For every month a property was empty it cost about £400 in lost rent.

The man in charge, Vice-Admiral Timothy Laurence, Chief Executive of Defence Estates — and husband of the Princess Royal — admitted to the committee that the problem was “totally unacceptable”.

The problem dates from a contract signed by the MoD 13 years ago when it sold the bulk of Armed Forces housing stock to Annington Homes under a sale and leaseback arrangement. Although Annington Homes became the new owner of about 50,000 properties, under the contract the MoD remained responsible for maintaining them.

Since 2006, maintenance of the Service housing stock in England and Wales was contracted out to Modern Housing Solutions for £18 million. But the MoD excluded carpets in the contract because the company awarded the deal was charging too much, the MPs said. The MoD chose to manage the provision of carpets itself. But “the approvals process for replacement carpets ... can take a long time and is subject to funding being available”, the committee said in a report on Service accommodation published today.

The length of time it took to resolve the carpet question was one of the sources of dissatisfaction among Service families who took part in a survey by the National Audit Office. The MoD is currently examining how to integrate carpets into the main seven-year contract with Modern Housing Solutions.

Admiral Laurence told the committee: “Carpets are a difficult area. There is a risk attached. They were suggesting that we should add a lot of risk factor into the sum; we decided that was not good value for money for the public purse, so we took it out.”

The committee reported that a third of Service families considered the general condition of their property to be poor.

Admiral Laurence told the MPs: “We aspire to have double glazing, loft insulation, ideally a modern kitchen and a modern bathroom and various other things. That is the aspiration. We do not meet it in every case but that is what we are aiming to achieve.”

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