Research and analysis

Improving the effectiveness of the Future Accommodation Model to increase private renting behaviour amongst UK Service personnel: Technical Annex

Published 19 September 2023

This research was completed by a Ministry of Defence (MOD) employee to contribute towards a MSc in Behavioural Change at a UK university. The research was supervised by a Government Social Researcher at the MOD and a professor of behavioural change at the host university. The views expressed in this report are the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect those of the government.

This research was completed in 2021 during the Future Accommodation Model (FAM) Pilot programme. The research findings have been used to inform the development of a new accommodation offer for the UK Armed Forces, which was announced in September 2023.

The MOD considered various options for the design of a new accommodation offer, including making financial savings for Defence. The MOD is no longer seeking to make financial savings or sell existing service accommodation due to this change in accommodation policy. The reader should note this context when reading this report.

List of abbreviations

BCTs Behaviour change techniques

BCW Behaviour change wheel

FAM Future Accommodation Model 

HMNB His Majesty’s Naval Base 

MOD Ministry of Defence 

RAF Royal Air Force 

RN Royal Navy 

MoA Mechanisms of action

SFA Service Family Accommodation 

SLA Single Living Accommodation 

SP Service personnel 

Strengths and limitations of the research

Generalisability

Generalisability is limited by the locational context of the pilot sites as rental markets vary significantly in cost, availability, and other characteristics. The low participation rate further restricts generalisability with only two junior ranks participating. Only Army personnel participated at officer level (six participants) limiting any generalisability to Royal Navy (RN) and Royal Air Force (RAF) officers but providing relatively good data for the Army officer population at Aldershot. More Royal Navy and Royal Air Force personnel already occupy private accommodation making FAM a less significant change and potentially prompting fewer to participate.

Selection Bias

Those already renting were over-represented with 36% of participants against 3% in the eligible population. A more representative sample may have given more strength to barriers over facilitators. Low participation by junior ranks reflects their low engagement with accommodation information (Rolfe, 2020) and may be masking the importance of psychological capability influences.

Social Desirability Bias

Conducting focus groups remotely, participants’ decisions to generally keep their cameras off, and knowledge that data would be pseudonymised may have all contributed to a sense of anonymity and reduced social desirability bias. However, deference to rank was still apparent, potentially skewing results if participants said what they thought their seniors wanted to hear. Facilitation of groups by a senior member of accommodation policy may also have led to participants expressing opinions more strongly to try and influence future policy. Participants occasionally added weight to statements through the chat bar but generally kept video and audio off when not speaking, making strength of agreement difficult to gauge and potentially leading to the strength of some influences being under/overstated. The extent of these biases may be better understood by conducting individual interviews via an independent researcher to triangulate findings.

Limitations of the BCW Process

Whilst the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW) does offer a theory-based process for identifying hypothesised mechanisms of action (MoA) in existing interventions (Michie and others, 2014), its limitations when retrofitting the links between behaviour change techniques (BCTs), intervention functions and COM-B components are recognised (Steinmo and others, 2015). In particular, the large number of links from some intervention functions to BCTs and COM-B domains, and absence of links for others, meant judgement played a significant role in both hypothesising the likely MoA in FAM and suggesting improvements. Judgement was similarly applied when using APEASE criteria to assess appropriateness of intervention functions and BCTs. Initiatives such as the Human Behaviour Change Project will be important in improving understanding of interventions and the contexts they will work in (Michie and others, 2017). The identification of links between MoA and intervention content found in this study therefore contributes to the growing evidence base.

Quality Assurance

The research proposal for this research was reviewed by the Army Scientific Advisory Committee and approved by the MOD Research Ethics Committee (Ref: 2064/MODREC/21).

All focus groups were supported by a member of the Government Social Research profession. A 20% sample of focus group data was independently coded by a Government Social Researcher to check for reliability.

The research report was reviewed by an academic supervisor and the MOD Research Sponsor who is a Government Social Researcher.

References

Michie S, Atkins L and West R (2014) ‘The behaviour change wheel: a guide to designing interventions’, Silverback Publishing

Michie S, Thomas J, Johnston M, Mac Aonghusa P, Shawe-Taylor J, Kelly MP and & West R (2017) ‘The Human Behaviour-Change Project: harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning for evidence synthesis and interpretation’, Implementation Science, Volume 12, Issue 1, pages 1 to 12

Rolfe S (2020) ‘Working Together to Meet the Housing Needs of Ex-Service Personnel: Examining the Challenges of Transition and Collaboration,’ Forces in Mind Trust.

Steinmo S, Fuller C, Stone SP and Michie S (2015) ‘Characterising an implementation intervention in terms of behaviour change techniques and theory: the ‘Sepsis Six’ clinical care bundle’, Implementation Science, Volume 10, Issue 1, pages 1 to 9

Focus Group Discussion Guide

This focus group discussion guide has been developed to support facilitation of focus groups with Service personnel (SP) from the three FAM pilot sites. Data gathered from the research will be analysed to address the research question:

RQ2: What are the likely influences on SP renting private property?

Overview of focus group

Section	Content
Introductions and accommodation experience	Introductions, housekeeping, aims for the group, ethics, exploration of current accommodation experiences and plans for the future
Motivation to rent	Exploration of motivation to rent, covering automatic and reflective motivation
Opportunity to rent	Exploration of the opportunity to rent, covering physical and social opportunity
Capability to rent	Exploration of the capability to rent, focusing on psychological capability
Sum up, debrief and close	Summing up, explanation of next steps and thanking participants, opportunity for participants to ask more about the policy

Introductions and accommodation experiences [20 minutes]

Hello and thank you for setting aside the time to take part in this focus group today. My name is [NAME] and I’ll be leading the discussion today. In a few minutes, I’ll ask you all to introduce yourselves, but I’ve got a few bits of housekeeping first.

As you can probably tell, I’m reading this bit off a script – I won’t do that throughout the group but there are some key bits of information I need to make sure I don’t forget to tell you before we get going.

So, this research is being conducted by the Accommodation Policy team in Head Office in support of the development of the Future Accommodation Model or ‘FAM’. We want to hear your views today to help us shape what FAM will look like when it rolls out in full, if approved. The future model is not set in stone, and we want to hear from service personnel and learn from the pilots to see what we can do to improve the model.

I’ve got a few points on confidentiality:

• This discussion is being recorded and automatically transcribed by MS Teams.

• The recording and transcript will only be available to those directly involved in the research which is five researchers and policy professionals in the head office accommodation team. It will not include anyone in your chains of command.

• The recording will only be used to check the accuracy of the transcript and then deleted. The transcript will then be anonymised (names removed and replaced with an identifier, any identifying information removed).

• The anonymised transcript will only be used by those directly involved in accommodation policy development.

• A report of the research will be written up and shared more widely in Defence, as well as being submitted to [UNIVERSITY NAME] as a Masters research project. Any quotes used in the final report will only be attributed to a rank group and service (for example, ‘Royal Air Force junior rank’).

So that’s what we will do to maintain confidentiality. For your part, please respect the confidentiality of others in this group – what is said in this discussion doesn’t leave the room.

All opinions are valid – there are no right or wrong answers and it’s fine to disagree, but please respect each other’s views. It can be difficult not to talk over each other when doing this virtually so please try to use the ‘raise hand’ button [point out where it is] and I’ll bring people in [if on phone – chip in]. Equally, you don’t have to answer every question – if there is anything you would rather keep to yourself then that is fine.

There will be a few points in the discussion where I’ll ask you to write things in the chat bar [talk through where it is, check all have found, chip in if on phone].

You’re free to leave at any point and this won’t be reported back to anyone. But if you already know you will need to leave early then please let me know – all being well, we should be finished within an hour and a half. You can also withdraw from this research up to two weeks from today. What this means is that you can email me to request to withdraw and I will delete anything you said from the transcript. After two weeks we will have completed the anonymisation process so it will no longer be possible to easily identify your input and delete it.

We don’t expect discussion to get into areas that might cause distress and please only share what you are comfortable to. There is also an independent point of contact if you want to raise any complaints or concerns about the research – [NAME] is just posting the contact details for the three Service points of contact in the chat, they can also be found on the participant information sheet you will have received ahead of this session.

Right, one more scripted bit to explain the background of the research and then I’ll start asking some questions and it will be over to you.

EXPLAIN BACKGROUND OF THE RESEARCH

The MOD is in the process of developing the Future Accommodation Model to give SP more choice about how, where and with whom they live. FAM is currently being piloted at three sites – HMNB Clyde, Aldershot Garrison and RAF Wittering. Under the pilot, SP are given choice to live in Service Family Accommodation (SFA), Single Living Accommodation (SLA), to rent privately or to buy their own home.

FAM has not been finalised. We want to talk with you to understand more about what is important to you and use that to improve the model. Today we will be focussing on what FAM would need to offer to make it easier for SP wanting to rent a private home – by this I mean a property that you rent from anyone other than the MOD.

Some of you here may be on the FAM pilot and others may not have even heard about it. For this discussion, that doesn’t matter – we want to understand what affects your accommodation choice from both perspectives.

We’ll be joined by [NAME] from one of the FAM Cells at the end of the session to give you an opportunity to ask any questions about FAM, or you can contact your own base FAM Cell but, for now, we want to understand your views on renting based on what you already know.

Q1: In a moment we’ll go round the group to introduce ourselves, but first I’d like you to draw a timeline of all the different types of accommodation you’ve lived in since you were 18, and what / where you hope to live for the next five years. We have five minutes set aside – put your hand up when done.

For example, you might have lived with parents then joined the forces living in SLA, rented with a partner then taken SFA when married, changed SFA every two years. In the next five years you might want to buy a home.

Once participants have finished, facilitator to share their own timeline then go around group asking participants to give their name and hold up their timeline to the camera – inform participants that you will take a screenshot of the timeline. Reassure participants they do not have to explain any of the reasons for moving if they don’t want to. [No pressure to explain where the reason for moving may have been sensitive]. In particular, this exercise should draw out any previous experience of renting and/or any plans to rent.

We’ll now move on to the main discussion which we’ve split into three areas:

• Why you want or don’t want to rent [Motivation]

• What impact your work or personal life has on how easy or difficult renting would be [Opportunity]

• What additional skills, knowledge or experience you might need to rent a property [Capability]

• Your answers to the questions might cut across all those areas – don’t worry about that, we’ve just broken it down this way to help guide the session.

Motivations to rent [25 minutes]

ALL ACCOMMODATION OPTIONS

Q2: When you received your assignment to your current location, why did you choose the accommodation option you did? E.g. if you chose SLA – why?

• Did you look at other options?

• Did you weigh up the good and bad points, or was it a clear decision? Why?

• Would you have made the same decision if the rules were different (e.g. entitlement to SFA)?

Q3: In the chat, write down the three most important factors when making your accommodation choice?

Ask participants to write these down [1 minute] then read them out. Explore whether there is consensus on the most important influences. Explore if/why any of the factors below are not raised.

• Family / Relationship status

• Length of service

• Friends

• Money

• Ease

• Choice

• Location

• Lifestyle

• Quality / Size

• Ability to do job

Q4: Does/has being a member of the [RN/Army/RAF] influence(d) your choice?

• Wanting to live amongst similar / different people

• Feeling of expectation from / duty to service including unit cohesion

• Does your rank or role affect your decision?

ON RENTING:

Q5: What do you think about renting?

Q6: Has anyone never rented a private property? Why

FOR PARTICIPANTS WITH EXPERIENCE OF RENTING

Q7: Why did you decide to rent? Why not now? What was the experience like? Has anyone had a positive experience?

Opportunity to rent [20 minutes]

In this next section, I want to explore what about your life, personal or work, makes it easy or difficult to rent.

Q8: In the chat, write the three top reasons why, when receiving your assignment to your current location, you decided to/not to rent?

• For those who do rent - what made it a realistic option?

• For those who do not rent – what prevented it from being a realistic option?

Ask participants to write these down [1 minute] then read them out. Explore whether there is consensus on the most important influences. Explore if/why any of the factors below are not raised.

• Time required to find a property

• Physically getting to the location to view properties / area

• Up-front cost

• Ongoing cost

• Availability / proximity of rental properties

• Availability of information on renting

• Compatibility with job/role

Q9: What would need to change for renting to be realistic?

Q10: For those with experience of the FAM pilot – does the support offered help address these barriers?

If group is not familiar, explain that, under the pilot, FAM offers an interest-free deposit loan and an ongoing rental payment to bring the cost broadly in line with SFA.

Q11: What do you think more senior SP (i.e., a rank or two above you) think about SP renting and how does that influence you?

• Positive or negative view?

• Does that influence you?

• What if you saw more of your peers/seniors renting?

• What would civilians think of more SP renting?

Q12: How does ‘community’ influence your choice?

• Importance of service (i.e., ‘patch life’)/civilian community

• What do those closest to you think?

• What about when you deploy?

• How does who you live amongst affect your work?

Capability to rent [15 minutes]

In this last section, I want to understand if there is anything else that stops you renting – if there are any skills or knowledge you would need to make it work.

Q13: What steps are involved in renting a property that you don’t do in SFA? Where would you start? Write a quick timeline in the chat of what you would do if you were going to rent a property.

Ask participants to draw a timeline of the stages of renting and then to go through the steps together. Add in steps from below if not raised

• What’s different to SFA?

• Search for a property

• View property

• Secure with deposit

• Provide References

• Review and Sign contract

• Set up regular payment from bank account

• Set up removals / hire van and move

• Set up utilities

Q14: Are there any steps you wouldn’t feel confident doing yourself? What are you unsure about?

Q15: If you were leaving the services and needed to rent, where would you look for support?

• Transition support services

• HIVE / Welfare office

• Friends / relatives with experience

• Google

• Letting agent

• Independent advice (e.g. citizens advice / money advice service)

Q16: What would give you the confidence to rent?

• Advice

• Training

• Experience (once you’ve done it once, you know the process)

• Friends / relatives with experience

Close [10 minutes]

Q17: Thinking about everything we have spoken about today – is there anything else you would like to add?

Moderator to sum up the key discussion points and conclusions drawn by the group. Thank participants and reiterate the aims of the group – their views will help to inform the development of FAM.

Nothing you have said today will be attributed to you personally. The recordings will be transcribed using pseudonyms then deleted. When the research is written up, if direct quotes are used, the only information that will be given is during which session something was said (e.g. ‘RAF Junior ranks’).

As set out in the information provided to you in advance of this focus group, you have all given informed consent to participate in this research and are free to withdraw that consent and your data up to two weeks from to today. After that point, your data will have been anonymised so it will not be possible to extract one person’s contribution. Anyone wishing to withdraw should contact the Chief Investigator [EMAIL ADDRESS].

If any of the issues raised today have affected you then please contact your unit welfare officer to discuss the support available. If you wish to make a complaint or raise any other issues about the research, please contact the volunteer advocate [contact details].

We can share a copy of the research report with you once it has been completed (likely early 2022), but please note that this does represent ongoing policy development which has not yet been announced by Ministers. If you would like to receive the report, please email the Chief Investigator from your MODNET email account.

That is the end of the focus group and we will stop recording at this point, but if anyone wants to ask any questions about FAM, [name] from the [location] FAM Cell is available to speak with you.

Coding guide – COM-B domains

COM-B domain	Definition	Domain in context of renting in the Armed Forces	Example quotations
Physical capability	Physical skill, strength or stamina	Barriers or facilitators in this domain may stem from a SP’s ability to physically access properties to assess suitability and/or manage the process of moving in.	[No examples in dataset]
Psychological capability	Knowledge or psychological skills, strength or stamina to engage in the necessary mental processes	Barriers or facilitators in this domain could include knowing how and having the skills (e.g., computer skills) to search for a property, engage with letting agents and so on. May also cover the mental stamina/stress involved. Does not include knowledge required to engage with the FAM intervention, unless that is linked to aspects of renting that exist with or without the intervention which are generally coded as physical opportunity (i.e., personnel rely on the financial support of the intervention to rent).	“I looked at renting. I went on Zoopla.” “The Job is busy enough and it’s, it’s quite stressful enough with you moving your children between schools and moving jobs and dealing with the uncertainties [without also having to sort the rental administration]”
Social opportunity	Opportunity afforded by interpersonal influences, social cues and cultural norms that influence the way that we think about things (e.g., the words and concepts that make up our language).	Barriers or facilitators in this domain could include how the culture of the Armed Forces or single service shapes perceptions of renting, or how the actions or views of others (service or civilian) influence accommodation behaviour. Does not include attractiveness of service or civilian communities which are generally coded as reflective motivation (i.e., personnel evaluate the relative merits of the communities).	“If you’ve got a good chain of command, they will let people go and have that time off to go and visit, view and do whatever is needed for the private rental.” “Can’t ask for better SFA. When I showed my [Colleague], I said what you think about this? He said you guys just take it.” “So I think that that there are sometimes people are a bit kind of like I wouldn’t say anti-rent. Like anti-kind of renting and stuff.”
Physical opportunity	Opportunity afforded by the environment involving time, resources, locations, cues, physical ‘affordance’	Barriers or facilitators in this domain are predominantly linked to having the time, money and physical means (e.g., transport) to view properties, conduct administration and pay the up-front and ongoing costs associated with renting. Also includes the availability of properties to rent at the required location. Consideration should be given to whether participants are indicating they do not possess the resources, or they have sufficient resources but would prefer to use them on different things which should be coded as reflective motivation.	“[One of the top barriers to renting…] If they’re Navy they could be out on a ship. The military, they could be on deployment somewhere” “[Talking about the cost of renting…] Is this achievable? Is this realistic? It just doesn’t pass the first hurdle.” “I utilised the internal supply chain system to get my belongings from Devonport to Faslane. Not, obviously, not everyone can do that.”
Reflective motivation	Reflective processes involving plans (self-conscious intentions) and evaluations (beliefs about what is good and bad)	Barriers or facilitators in this domain are generally demonstrated by service personnel evaluating the pros and cons of accommodation options. This may include cost, administrative burden, location, quality, community and other characteristics. Generally also includes when participants communicate the merits of other accommodation types (i.e., they have evaluated the alternatives as good/bad). This domain could also include personnel making plans to rent.	“[Talking about renting…] It’s an option, but it’s not as smooth or as simple as what SFA would be.” “I could move to Aldershot into a quarter But that would have been, that would have meant my son would have had to move school and my wife would have to commute a fair distance to her job.” “The rented comes with all the appliances  … fact that it comes with all the white goods and stuff. Yeah, that’s definitely a win win for me.”
Automatic motivation	Automatic processes involving emotional reactions, desires (wants and needs), impulses, inhibitions, drive states and reflex responses.	Barriers or facilitators in this domain may include more emotional reactions to the idea of renting. They may act on the participant indirectly, for example, they may not believe renting is good or bad for them personally, but be influenced by their feelings of whether it is ‘the right thing’ for their organisation.	“I’m sick of the block now I’m gonna move out.” “You know the really basic unwritten rule is You expect to be at the whim and behest of the military because the admin will be supported. You know that’s starting. That started to get eroded…”

Coding guide – Inductive themes

Overarching theme	Definition and boundaries	Example quotations
Draw of the service community	The desire to live within or away from the service community due to the intrinsic social aspects and sense of proximity to work. Excludes evaluation of commute time (generally coded as availability of affordable properties).	“After a while I used to prefer to be away from the patch life because anybody that experienced living on an army patch, it’s everybody wants to be in everybody’s business and nothing is is private.” “I don’t want to live in Married quarters, when I when I finish working I go home.”
Administrative burden of renting	The amount of effort required to rent. Includes influences linked to the time, knowledge or mental stamina required and/or the distance of relocation. Also includes the ongoing administration of a property (e.g., maintenance). Excludes views on the appropriateness of personnel conducting the administration for themselves (generally coded as cultural and institutional beliefs). Excludes difficulties engaging with the administration of the intervention (generally coded as availability of affordable properties if participants were relying on the intervention’s financial support to rent).	“I’m possibly moving about to different ends of the country, you know, between two to three years, so you know, I don’t really fancy You know, get getting out of a tenancy agreement and then restarting a new one.” “Searching for a place was it was easiest thing. I mean I I looked at was entitled to and I think I was entitled to two weeks off, you know to to go and look for a place but I I really, it didn’t sit right with me to to take all of that time off to be to be honest and I really didn’t need it because you can just do everything online”
Cultural and institutional beliefs	Influences from seniors and peers in the organisation that shape accommodation behaviour. Beliefs about the impact the intervention will have on the culture and operational effectiveness of the service.	“The way the service works now is that you know you could be kind of anywhere you want to be but you’re still part of the family.” “Once you get rid of the SFA and you disperse people, then the welfare bit starts to fall away as well.”
Characteristics of rental properties	The characteristics of a rental property that personnel may be able to choose. Includes physical characteristics of the property itself and distance from amenities deemed important. Also includes the ability for the accommodation to provide stability to the service person and/or family. Excludes characteristics related to the service community (or lack thereof) which are coded as draw of the service community.	“It’s got a garden or whether it’s got a garage and and all that good stuff. And how many bedrooms.” “I’m close to the countryside as well so that that was all important.” “I could move to Aldershot into a quarter but that would have been, that would have meant my son would have had to move school And my wife would have to commute a fair distance to her job.”
Availability of affordable rental properties in area	Availability of rental properties at a cost (up-front and ongoing) perceived to be affordable. Takes into account perspectives on what is a reasonable daily commute (i.e., what participants consider to be ‘in area’). Excludes evaluation of characteristics of rental properties in their own right where this does not include comment on the impact on affordability or availability (generally coded as characteristics of rental properties).	“I stuck properties in right move up to the value of sort of what, what the FAM system said I should be expecting to pay a month for a two-bed and I got nothing within about 30 miles.” “Individuals find it difficult if the, the one in private rental then got two to three months’ rent in advance, and it’s that’s, unless they’ve got savings, it’s, it’s a lot to find.”