National statistics

Service Family Accommodation Statistics: Background Quality Report 2023

Published 25 May 2023

1. Contact

This publication has been produced by the Data Exploitation team in the Defence Infrastructure Organisation.

We welcome feedback on our statistical products. If you have any comments or questions about this publication or about our statistics in general, you can contact us as follows:

Email: Analysis-ChiefStatsOffice@mod.gov.uk

If you wish to correspond by mail, our postal address is:

Data Exploitation (National Statistics)

Defence Infrastructure Organisation Head Office

St George’s House

DMS Whittington Barracks

Lichfield

Staffordshire

WS14 9PY

For general MOD enquiries, please call: 020 7218 9000.

2. Introduction & Statistical Presentation

This is an annual publication which provides figures on UK Service Family Accommodation (SFA), including counts of dwellings (permanent holdings) by country, counts and percentages of vacant dwellings, and counts by condition as at the 31 March for the year 2000 and each year from 2010 to 2023.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) publishes a wide range of statistics with the main purpose to; inform policy and decision making within the Department, to measure the performance of the Ministry of Defence against Government and Parliamentary targets and to inform general debate in Government, Parliament and the public.

The provision of good quality living accommodation for Service personnel and their families is managed by the MOD’s Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO), and should meet the aims set out in the Armed Forces Covenant. DIO manages these properties in the UK (and some overseas locations), which includes planning targeted improvement programmes and managing future requirements.

3. Statistical Processing

3.1 Source Data

This includes data provided from administrative systems in the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO). It is provided by regional contractors to DIO who enter it into an electronic asset register (database).

3.2 Frequency of data collection

Data is extracted from the system every 1 April (annually) for the purposes of this publication.

3.3 Data collection

An extract is taken from this system and stored within DIO’s Data Warehouse.

3.4 Data validation

The extracts are currently taken and put through a series of validation checks based upon previous extracts. The data is then made available to the Data Exploitation team and subject matter experts where they undertake further checks, using their knowledge and experience. Once the data is confirmed, it is used to produce the range of tables. These tables undergo several rounds of checking and scrutiny to ensure the outputs are accurate before being published.

3.5 Data compilation

All the tables in this publication are National Statistics. Percentages are calculated from the unrounded data and presented to the nearest whole number. Additionally, totals and sub-totals are rounded separately and so may not equal the sums of their rounded parts.

4. Quality Management

4.1 Quality Assurance

The MOD’s quality management process for Official Statistics consists of three elements:

1. Regularly monitoring and assessing quality risk via an annual assessment.

2. Providing a mechanism for reporting and reviewing revisions/corrections to Official Statistics.

3. Ensuring Background Quality Reports are published alongside reports and are updated regularly.

4.2 Quality Assessment

The most recent quality risk assessed for this publication was low.

5. Relevance

5.1 User needs

This publication is the primary means by which information on UK SFA is made widely available.

The information in this publication has a range of users including the media, politicians, academic researchers and the general public who use the information to:

• gain an understanding of number and condition of UK SFA;

• set the context for other information on Defence.

MOD is required to publicly account for all its assets, including knowing where they are and how they are used. While internal systems are sufficient for MOD use, this publication makes information available publicly, regularly and as a time series.

Definitions and other information are also included in the tables so that the data are set in context and can be understood by a lay audience, as well as those with professional interests.

The publication also provides evidence for the outcomes of policy initiatives such as, reductions in the percentage of vacant SFA and improvements to the surveyed condition of the stock of SFA. Generally, this is of interest in terms of policy effectiveness and the use of public funds, but may be of particular interest to those concerned with the welfare of the Armed Forces and their families.

6. Accuracy and Reliability

6.1 Overall Accuracy

The data in these tables has been extracted from an MOD database which is reliable and there are no significant concerns regarding its accuracy. In addition to being checked by the DIO staff who carried out the data extraction / collation, tables are also reviewed by a subject matter expert as a part of the validation process. The data in these tables has also been subjected to a check by Government Statisticians.

6.2 Data Revisions

Data revisions are handled in accordance with the MOD’s Official Statistics Revisions and Corrections Policy.

There have been no revisions to this edition.

7. Timeliness and Punctuality

7.1 Timeliness

The data is extracted on 1 April each year. The extract is checked by subject matter experts and Government Statisticians then compiled into tables which enable the publication documents to be created. This process takes approximately 4 weeks.

Following this, the draft publication is quality assured by subject matter experts and Government Statisticians, any feedback is considered and actioned ready for finalising the publication. The final publication is sent to the Publication Team ready for the release of the Statistics. This process takes approximately 3 weeks.

In total, the process from the reference period for the statistics takes approximately 7 weeks, which informs the publication.

7.2 Punctuality

As a National Statistic, the release date for this publication was pre-announced on the GOV.UK Official Statistics Release Calendar in accordance with the guidance set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics.

8. Coherence and Comparability

In this publication, both tables cover the years 2000 and 2010 to 2023, thus providing a decade time series, together with a snapshot of the beginning of the century. The introductory material explains the impact on the statistics of factors that affect coherence over time.

9. Accessibility and Clarity

This publication is published on the Service Family Accommodation homepage on GOV.UK as a HTML document. The tables are available as an OpenDocument Spreadsheet (ODS) file to enable the figures to be reused.

Within the tables there is further information to clarify definitions, advise users of caveats in the data, and explain changes since previous years.

The background information section assists with the accessibility and clarity of this bulletin by setting out the context of the statistics, providing definitions and explanations of the terms used and giving some brief information on methods and data quality.

10. Trade-offs between Output Quality Components

The process for collating information requires substantial checking and includes approval by subject matter experts. The data is requested early in the publication process to allow time for quality assurance; the impact of this is that any last minute changes to underlying information may not be captured. However, DIO have brought the release date forward from December to May since the 2015 publication.

11. Cost and Respondent Burden

The outputs are produced from the administrative data provided by the DIO. The benefit of the MOD publishing the data on SFA is that these administrative data are placed in the public domain, and as National Statistics, in a way that ensures their adherence to quality standards and independence from political interference. The small burden that this places on the data suppliers is considered to be worthwhile to achieve this, and the consequent public accountability provided by their publication.

12. Confidentiality and Security

12.1 Confidentiality – Policy

We adhere to the principles and protocols laid out in the Code of Practice for Statistics and comply with pre-release access arrangements. The Pre-Release Access List is available online.

All staff involved in the production process have signed the Data Protection Act and all MOD, Civil Service and data protection regulations are adhered to.

12.2 Confidentiality – Data Treatment

This publication does not contain any identifiable personal data. All data is supplied at an aggregate level to significantly reduce a security disclosure risk.

12.3 Security

All data is stored, accessed and analysed using the MOD’s restricted network and IT systems.