LONDON, June 30 (Xinhua) -- A one-percent pay rise for armed forces will undermine morale in Britain's army, navy and air force, a report by the House of Commons Defense Committee said Saturday.
The report, published on Britain's 2018 Armed Forces Day, is also critical of the living quarters provided by the military for service people and their families.
The report said it was clear to the committee, made up of politicians, that the contract for the provision of accommodation was 'not fit for purpose', adding it is unacceptable that there are no enforcement measures that can be imposed for the shortcomings.
It adds that if the Ministry of Defense (MoD) retains the 1 percent pay cap for service personnel while other departments increase their pay, it will undermine morale and have an increased negative effect on recruitment and retention.
"While the government has signalled that there is some flexibility for departments to move away from the public sector pay cap of 1 percent, it seems that no additional funding will be made available to the MoD to pay for increases above this level for service personnel," the report adds.
Chairman of the Defense Committee, Julian Lewis said: "It would be disgraceful if our service people missed out on an increase in pay while they watched others who work for the government receive pay awards. What kind of message does that send to soldiers about how much we value the difficult and sometimes dangerous job that they do?"
The committee is asking the MoD to show how it will learn lessons from the appalling accommodation story and how it will apply them to future contracts. Failure to improve the maintenance of service accommodation will have a major adverse impact on recruitment and retention in the armed forces, members of the committee warned.
Former army infantryman Mark Francois, who is now an MP and a member of the Defense Committee, said: "For years, service personnel have received a sub-standard accommodation service from the Defense Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) and their contractors. This has gone on long enough and simply has to change.
"The DIO is a frankly dysfunctional organisation and the committee is now calling on MoD Ministers to get a grip -- and come up with a radical action plan to reform the DIO and show service personnel and their families that they are indeed valued and will be treated as such in the future."
