Has anyone else heard that disturbance allowance is being stopped?

[saltire]

Apparently the move will be paid for and new school uniforms - which will be paid for once it has been bought by parents, they can claim the money back! Nothing else, no extra money for the upheaval of moving from one end of the country to the other, or indeed form another country

First I've heard of this, surely it won't work?

don't think it can - disturbance allowance is for telephone connection, and all the other gubbins that you have no other option but to pay for when you move - haven't heard this on AFF net or any other source.
It would stand to reason it is being looked at - in the same way that the old 'rates' system went to 'actuals' so you only got the money back that you had actually spent, but I can't see it working - it's impossible to quantify surely... (and 'actuals' went back to 'rates' fairly rapidly... - JPA would never ever be able to work out how to claim for a school uniform surely?!)
I'm going to dig around and see what I can come up with!!!

grrrr treasury

I haven't heard anything about it either, but like you say, what about all the other things yu need to take into consideration when you move. We paid out £140 for B&B for 2 nights, plus almost £100 petrol, then there was sky reconnection, phone line reconnection, utilities bills etc.

You can claim for 3 nights hotel accommodation on top of disturbance allowance - and the petrol.

hf - some might be able to. DH has always been told that is what the disturbacne allowance is for.

Expenses excluded from the DA rate:

Hotel costs

Annex A to Section 1 Chapter 7 JPA!

Fuel is also not included in DA - covered by other allowances.

There was an article in the Telegraph this week saying that CEA may also be examined as it's a drain on the taxpayer. Don't they think the Armed Forces pay tax?

saltire - is dh doing that old trick of telling you he's not entitled and then claiming it on the sly for beer tokens?
seriously, you can claim for hotel accom on top of DA, so his admin office want a boot if they are telling him otherwise...

Romy - he has been told that twice, once at our old place, which was an RAF base, and here which is army-run-- tri-service. If the money was paid it would have gone into joint account and I would notice

it was actually a neighbour who told me that disturbance allowance was being stopped. She says that the man who cmae to do her pre-march out told her.

I think there is some snag - you have to book it through CHBS or whatever they're called... but we've done it three times with no problems...

nope not heard this! no-one would move, it's costs far more than just school uniform

Berry - maybe that's the idea, they don't want anyone to move!

Saltire - The regulations for a service move are contained in JSP 752 and your husband should refer his admin office to this publication. As HF says, there is an entitlement to hotel accommodation as well as a MMA (motor milage allowance) claim for the journey; these are not included in disturbance allowance.

Ref the OP - the Armed Forces Pay Review Body examine all our allowances periodically to ensure that they are still relevant and fair. Last year they reviewed the X Factor and actually increased it so our disturbance allowance may not be for the chop after all.

You can definitely claim back hotel expenses, food expenses during the move, and petrol. We came out of our last two moves (within 5 weeks of each other) quite nicely

They've recently reviewed DA - it went up and down for different ranks. Ours went down

I am always amazed that the disturbance allowance is the same for UK moves and overseas moves. We lost out on car sales etc when going to and returning from Cyprus. That move hit us. The other move was more worthwhile although dh didn't know he could claim for my petrol as well as his when we did it so we missed out on that bit.

Off topic but the new JPA claims system for expenses is actually very efficient. The money was in our account within days of dh putting his computerised claim in. I was very impressed.

Surely they can't move us without the disturbance allowance? That would be a HUGE issue.

I agree. You absolutely must claim for your overnight accommodation during the move and for food expenses. There is an upper limit but it is fairly generous and the rate is per person, so more for the bigger family.

The one time you can't claim for petrol is if you are moving to / from Germany. The 'system' believes we should all fly and so a flight is covered and mileage to airports. In fact, most of us drive - often in two cars - and so the 'system' saves an fortune. I believe it is a cynical cost-cutting tactic and it makes me really cross

That's weird, because we got mileage when I moved to Brussels, and Germany isn't that far away from here.

Interesting!

I think it may be because they have so many people flying between Germany and UK that they are happy to make the arrangements. Probably harks back to when everyone made the journey on military aircraft from Brize, although I don't think they do any longer. Not sure, tbh, we drove and paid the ferry and the majority of the petrol. Double checked the rules both on posting out and on posting back and couldn't claim. In fact, I think there was a letter about it in the AFF Journal not long ago and a fairly watery response from the powers that be.