2020 Vision - a 2018 review

Adult Staff The Staff Mess
11

The cadet experience

2020

…to an increasing number of young people (50,000 by 2018) and so inspire young people to learn and develop new skills.

2025

… to as many young people as our resources, financial and human, can sustain, inspiring them to learn and develop new skills

Removed the increase to a set figure – recognition that as big as the RAFAC could get it still needs to be supported by the same system, with the same budget, resource, Squadrons and CFAV despite the ever growing squeeze and reduction on all of these. :+1:

The Adult Volunteer

2020

To sustain and improve the Organisation and so provide the best possible support to our adult volunteers, to minimise risk and deliver safe activity to cadets.

2025

Sustaining and improving the RAFAC in order to provide the best possible support to our staff and volunteers so as to minimise administrative processes, manage risk, and deliver safe activity to cadets.

Specific mention of minimise admin processes :+1:

From here on in very difficult to offer direct comparison as the two documents differ in style, however points to pick out of the 2025

Cadets

  • Define the minimum offer of activities that should be made available to every cadet on each unit.
  • Provide cadet gliding and flying opportunities via approved civilian providers in as many locations as possible.
  • Maximise the quantity of flying and gliding opportunities being offered by AEF and VGS.

This to me sounds like
1 we can expect real change in what flying/gliding looks like in the RAFAC - i wont hold my breath just yet :confused:

and
2 prescribing what Squadrons are to provide as a minimum. (how this will be measured is another story, “offering a navigation walk” or a “shooting opportunity” and offering enough places for all are two different measures. Offering 10 places/year for 40 Cadets is “offering the activity” regardless of the success rate.

Volunteers

  • Remove all unnecessary admin processes and standardise and minimise all necessary processes.
  • Invest in and develop improved Electronic Ways of Working.
  • Develop standardised, generic TORs for all key CFAV roles.
  • Develop a Complaints Process that is transparent and clearly understood by all.

Sounding optimistic now but does read as a “must and desirables” list written by the CFAVs rather than wishes and hopes from the Ivory Towers (it is not as that list is impressive or gains brownie points with those up the chain) :+1:

Organisation
“to Deliver, where possible, dedicated cadet accommodation at all RAF MOBs.”

Is this not what we understand as RACS? With the loss of stations by 2029 will there be enough Stations open to have more than 6/one per region?

“to Deliver a replacement for the No 8 cadet rifle.”

Interesting this is in the vision released in 2017 – this could be seen as an “easy win” given the roll our started in 2017 but does worry me that its 7 years away to complete the “delivery” and interesting is doesn’t specifically indicate the L144A1 :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Engagement

  • Continue to engage our Royal Patron and Honorary Ambassador to promote the RAFAC.

sounds like we can expect to see more of Kate and Carol! :+1:

12

Sounds like more ‘blunty’ gobbledegook without actually achieving anything.

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13

Sounds like the same old crap dressed up for the next few years.Then they will have another meeting in 2025 and tweak things a bit but by then the organisation may be in terminal decline.Talk about fiddling while Rome burns.

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14

I don’t recall a local option for .22" for 2+ yrs. L144 - haven’t seen one yet, no concrete plan that I’m aware of for receipt / trg.

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15

What Region are you?

16

Is this where we could align more strongly with civilian aviation rather than military?

From what I can see the single biggest fear is the loss of the £26,000,000 or however much from the RAF, but apart from CFAV remuneration and travel etc an awful lot of this seems to be swallowed up by administrators and infrastructure in terms of full time staff pay and buildings, so probably not used to its best advantage for cadets.

I would suspect there are lot more opportunities within the civilian aviation sphere than military across the spectrum, but we seem tied to military side for no other reason than the money we get and giving something for RAF retirees to faff around with and play the RAF game.

Looking at annual camps over the past 4/5 years be they blue or green, they seem to be more about visits and other things and seem to heading down a big kids PGL route and I suspect it will carry on getting more and more like this, so do we need to use military estate?. There are a few specialist camps now, but they could continue without any RAF input. The STEM could be better served by involving a broader spectrum within this area based out of universities in the summer holidays and just visits to aviation firms and RAF bases where the latter have something relevant to offer.

Some of us old gits look at these “strategies” that come out and see they haven’t changed hugely in over 20 years. From what I can sort of recall, the sort of things in these are in essence just re-treads with a bit of word changing and the reason is, everything is too long term. What is the point of a 5, 7 or 10 year plan/’vision’? Cadets toady won’t benefit from it and those in the timespan won’t either, as something else will come up and focus will be lost. As staff as we are not paid and or otherwise involved, we have little or no reason based on our couple of nights a week, to have any enthusiasm to implement these, when our real jobs might be going tits up or at the very least be demanding more of us, without the curved balls family life chucks into the mix.

Another reason many of the things stay the same and haven’t changed and or the things haven’t happened, is that the people putting it together do not have any influence or control over any of it actually happening, the only things they can do it fiddle around with rules and regulations, most of which seem to be adaptations of things that come down from on high or if not and ATC only rules they get too excited about it all and make them essentially unworkable. There is no point in putting anything that you cannot directly affect the delivery of, in the case of the ACMB given they can’t do anything without permission and or it being agreed by 22 Gp or even Air Command, they only bother with these things to make it look like they are relevant, which again puts a question mark against the whole HQAC structure. I’ve seen massive rationalisation of management in my working life across the company and other companies I deal with, yet the good old public sector seems to keep and expand on management structures. If we were a business we would only have 2 RCs overseeing North and South and maybe a third for the middle.

One of the repeating things is staff and cadet recruitment and retention. There reason for failure is they see the two as the same, when they aren’t. There is mention over the last 10 years wrt pressures on volunteer staff across the board and as yet there is little or nothing to address this. Comments from 2014 and 2007 mention the pressures CFAV experience from their work (called primary career in 2014, like the ATC is a secondary career) and private lives impact how much time they have for Air Cadets and negative influencers within the ATC such and T&C of being a CFAV and the admin burden of running a squadron means people don’t want to do it.

If these things are repeatedly mentioned as problems, then the collective failure of HQAC to address these and remove them says it all really.

I don’t see if I’m getting more than 2 emails a week from anyone other than the staff etc on the squadron, as a recognition of admin burden. Speaking to our Legion branch secretary, he said he looks at his Legion emails once a fortnight and has on average 3 emails in that time, which is all we should be getting.

The training while not overly onerous (unless you want to try and do loads of different things) is irritating when it mostly needs renewing and this has to be done at the weekend or can involve taking time off work, for many unpaid in all respects. The irony is that probably higher RAF command levels introduced the need for NGBs and more formal training and then if this is seen as creating problems

If they are going to have things like these strategies, the shelf life should be no more than 3 years to retain focus and keep it well within their scope and sphere of influence. The repeated attempts at admin reduction should be within their scope and influence, yet it seems not and I do wish the fallacy of things being electronic as a reduction in admin was kicked into the long grass, admin is admin regardless of it being on paper or on a screen. There seems to be an ‘oh well’ acceptance of delivery when it comes to these things. I’ve known many people take jobs ‘outside the business’ as they haven’t been up to scratch, but not from HQAC.

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17

Yes it would be the same idea,
HOWEVER
look how the British merchant navy is from when this decision was made and where it is now…

Perhaps the aviaton industry could follow…
So is the grass greener?

I am not going to debate in detail all the pros and cons but whilst it makes sense now… what about 10/15/25 years from now?
Everything should be looked to increase our abilities but it needs to be proper and long term

18

seconded.

i would rather a very short, but focused 2/3 year plan, which can be worked at than a 15 point wish list of what the next 10 years might entail.

the gliding situation a prime example of this.
the plan was to extend the lifetime of the airframes - months later there was a pause which although we’re gliding again is effectively still in place as were not up to speed yet.

the next vision is years later, in Cadet terms, a generation later and that target, goal, intention, call it what you will isnt reviewed in all that time.
“well we’re in a pause now, we can “extend the lifetime of the fleet” as we don’t know what the fleet are doing”

from what i have heard RC SW has a pratical approach - get what isn’t working (ultilearn, gliding, internal communication) put right, before we (the organisation) start anything else new

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19

He/she is obviously a heretic to the blunty cause… burn him/her

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20

i think you’ll find that applies to all the RCs, after all they’re the ones in the firing line of the volunteers.

21

I’ve never seen one in the flesh. If they are in as you put it in the ‘firing line’ why are they not more visible and making decisions.

22

What do you want them to do?

I’ve engaged with 2 directly about various things and have nothing but good things to say about both. They both care about the organisation and its people, they responded appropriately on each occasion and they have been sympathetic to my questions and reason for asking.

I think you’re just a disgruntled former volunteer with a chip on their shoulder, at least that’s how you come across. Nothing is ever going to be good enough for you and you’re only here to cause trouble and moan.

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23

Having been part of this organisation and seen how bad it is in parts, I’m just relaying the experiences I’ve and others have had. if you can’t handle that, well I have no further comment to make on how you perceive comments. Yt’s a free fire forum to comment on and not censored in any way unless it’s liabelous or defamatory.

Defending the indefensible at times is not practical.

24

quite possibly.
a friend of mine heard the SW RC recent speech given soon after appointment but long enough to know what was working and what wasn’t and seem to make it clear that fixing what has been put in place but isn’t working should be a higher priority than changing policy, making new ones or changing what/how we do things. lets get what we do now right before we try change something else.

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25

I see you’ve ignored the question I asked. If you think the RCs are so poor, what do you want them to do?

26

I didn’t state they were all poor, just that they need to be out on the roads more visiting Wings and definately Squadrons to see the work on the ground of what works and what doesn’t.

RCs are in effect the same as NHS senior managers, those below who rely on their patronage have a habit of not ‘speaking truth unto power’.

ACM Glenn Torpy when he was AOC 1 Group when on a visit I believe would get rid of the station execs and sit in a crew room and talk to the people ‘at the coalface’. This allowed him to get a feel for the people he commanded and their issues that affected their day to day life and work. Has an RC ever done anything like this or even just ‘dropped’ into a squadron when he/she is in an area without Wing staff being present.

I suggest that you watch the Gerry Robinson documentary about NHS management.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIl0b7dWHHY

The same is applicable to the ACO.

27

There was one AOC who would arrive on base with a false ID as Cpl / Sgt Smiff & find out more in a few hours than all the feedback given to him by his staff over the year!

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28

And, it told him which of his staff were telling him the truth and who were telling him what he wanted to hear. Shades of ACM Cross AOC Bomber Command, it is said if he was told that white was white and black was black he was happy but if he found out white was black then pity help them.

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I would say actually do things.

I’ve met a few over the years and never been impressed as they have spoken about things, yet not been able to make them happen.

I think in order to get a real idea of what’s concerning people is do an anonymous suggestion/comment box. An old councillor had threel of these, in the library and two local shops and he said he found out more, as people were more willing to say things if they weren’t identifiable. He had the idea to stop getting stopped constantly in the street, which while nice, took up time and he could never remember the conversations properly. He had a box to put the road they lived in, so he could see where the problems etc might be. He said there was a lot of rubbish, but there was a lot of things that recurred and as an elected individual he could look to take action. May be we should elect RCs and CACs on a 3 year basis, if they don’t deliver, no job. This is a process we are all familiar with.

Any of us can care, listen, be understanding, nod sympathetically and make the right noises. As my nans would have said “fine words butter no parsnips”, In essence words mean nothing. If you had engaged with a politician or local council official and had a similar response would you be as ‘understanding’’? Or is the understanding an acceptance on your part that they are marionettes and in reality can do nothing independently.

But these people are paid a goodly sum and there is and has been very little tangible coming out of their level for years.

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The problem with that is that you end up with the scenario where they are not at their desk dealing with the other issues that are on their desk such as P1 CP cases and staffing issues. As well as most Regions and Wings having issues with permanent staff that the RC’s are coping with due to the uniqueness of the MOD and civil service. I’d rather the RC sit at his desk and keep the organisation running, much the same as the Commandant should do but this seems not to be the case at the moment as there is a strong pull for her time around the RAF AC.

I know the new RCs spend a lot more time at the coal face getting the lay of the land but that is ultimately the wing commanders jobs not theirs. If the Wing Commanders aren’t honestly feeding back then they are doing their volunteers an injustice.

Lets not forget as well the organisation is ran by the CEB and not the commandant in all reality so every decision is made by a group of people, often making that process slow and laborious, especially if one particular RC is known to be a bit of a pain.

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