Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) and Amey has worked closely with Agility, the MOD approved service provider for removals, to ensure that Government guidance for house moves is closely adhered to.
During April, May and the first half of June, all but essential Service family house moves were put on hold to manage the spread of the virus however, with lockdown beginning to ease at the end of June, the decision was made to lift the restrictions on Move Ins and our teams were tasked with creating an action plan to get our Service families moving again.
Tom Silvey, Amey’s Operations Director (Housing) said ”Our priority is always the safety of our customers and workforce so a project was developed to co-ordinate a phased approach to house moves to identify and manage any risks. DIO, Amey and Agility came together to assess the moves that had been postponed, consider the ‘business as usual’ moves and to prioritise requirements.”
In excess of 2,000 cancelled Pre-Move Out, Move Out and Move In appointments were swiftly rearranged along with the co-ordination of almost 900 new moves. Coupled with the repatriation of around 100 families from Kenya and Nepal in April and the 600 ‘business as usual’ moves that took place in June, our teams were ready to support a further 2,000 Service families to move in July, and to support another 1,700 who are waiting to move during August.
This strong collaboration and a desire to support the military community has been key to the success of the project and it is testament to the commitment of all parties that business has continued as usual with minimal impact to contractual performance.
With moves scheduled right up until mid-October, more than 900 Service Family Accommodation (SFA) allocations have been made, in addition to support for Move In/Move Out appointments and removal service bookings. The resulting benefits of the early completion of these allocations is that all other applications for SFA, such as those for betterment moves or from cohabiting couples, can now be considered.
Our teams are proud of what’s been achieved in such a short timescale whilst working within COVID-19 restrictions. Their efforts to support Service families during these unprecedented times have been recognised as exemplary by Major Duncan Capps, Officer Commanding Regional Command and Captain Ken Whitfield, Navy Housing Colonel, who are both grateful that we’ve been able to help military families move so quickly.