A message from Colonel (Retired) Peter Germain Chief Executive GL RFCA:
As of the 1st August 2024, the Future Defence Infrastructure Services (FDIS) DIO contract has gone live in London and across the whole Volunteer Estate in the UK. This is a new way of doing business on our estate and brings the methodology into line with how business is conducted on the regular estate.
The amendment sees 1,622 sites, which are supported by the Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations (RFCA) and are known as the Volunteer Estate, receive key maintenance work, repairs, servicing and hard facilities management through the existing MOD Built Estate contracts.
The MOD’s existing Built Estate contracts, which provide HFM services to Defence sites across the UK, were amended to add the additional sites into their scope. The Built Estate contracts were awarded to Mitie Defence, VIVO Defence Services and VINCI Facilities Defence by the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) in 2021.
Through this new contact, we will continue to ensure that the Volunteer Estate remains safe and functional for all reserves and cadets to work and train. This is but one of the changes that we enacted so that we can deliver the best support to the UK’s reserves and cadets, as we have done over the past 116 years.
Maj Gen (Retired) Jamie Gordon, Chief Executive, Council Reserves Forces’ and Cadets’ Association
We are delighted to be partnering with ‘VINCI’, the nationally selected supplier for London and they will also be working in the same way with SE RFCA. Our GL RFCA Estates team will continue to work with all Reserve units and the Army and RAF cadet organisations in London, but they will have a change in role which will see them assuring delivery by VINCI. This should provide improved customer satisfaction through tailored services and faster delivery, with taut performance measures put in place to drive supplier incentives for better service.
Once the inevitable early teething problems have been ironed out, I am confident that FDIS, and our partnership with VINCI, is in the best interests of the units that occupy the London Volunteer Estate.
Our aim with delivering FDIS is to transform the maintenance of the Volunteer Estate in London with the intent to provide a service based upon a higher industry standard maintenance regime. Our well-trained dedicated 24/7 helpdesk, with excellent IT support, will address fault reports against a taut and defined repair schedule.
Dave Harris, the Operations Director of VINCI Facilities
It is a complex DIO contract and GL RFCA and VINCI, having been working very closely together over the last six months to cross reference and share a myriad of data about the 150 plus sites in London and agreeing multiple processes to prepare for the transition and to ensure the new system works.
The estates team have undertaken significant training to understand the contract and all the new measures and processes – now we must make it work for the units.
Stuart Sams, GL RFCA Head of Estate
