I don’t have a Civ Com - WSO
Then you can claim those costs on a 1771 AFAIK
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Ooo, no you can’t. We used to be allowed to claim £1.50 per day as Mess Incidental Expenses - but that was stopped many moons ago.
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Those on un-paid duty are SUPPOSED to be able to claim the CORE menu only as Crown Feeders, ie they don’t need to pay. However a lot of Pay-As-You-Dine stations don’t accept that any uniformed staff are unpaid. And of course that doesn’t include packed lunch or mess lunch as they are not core.
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Annex A to ACP 300 FI 318 days WSOs can claim for telephone calls and postage…
Anything else you should be able to claim from the Wing CWC.
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Of course the time and effort taken to claim things in a reasonable period of time…
Like taking the troops away and needing to claim sandwiches etc. Much easier to pay centrally and claim back on their behalf, but instead 50 blokes have to do separate claims…
The amount of time that takes…
If it was really about giving people money for reasonable expenses, we’d just give them a rate.
But it’s about saving money, and the equation works because it’s enough of a ball-ache/time waster to put people off…
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That’s how it works in the Scouts, too.
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Well you do kinda . . . the Wing Committee
alas I missed the meeting and as of yet haven’t had the time to watch the Video event but was the VA mentioned at all??? Can’t believe they’d be as daft as to reduce or remove that?
Mentioned, yes. But no changes were formally said. Just hints about how much it costs the org (see below) and that ‘changes need to be made’. There was no set-in-stone announcement that it would be removed/reduced/changed.
There was definitely a feeling that the Commandant wants to reduce the VA bill, but he also stated that his hands were at least partly tied as the rates are set by the relevant JSP.
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Yeah, there was talk about discussing the matter with the other cadet forces, and seeing what they are doing budget-wise. (with ref to VA)
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one can but hope that when he gets back an answer that other Cadet Forces actually recognise that their Volunteers are appreciated and that those people get some sort of similar renumeration for the job they do …
We’ll see I suppose.
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Its not necessairly the recognition…its the cadet forces wont have the budget from the gods to afford it
Exactly. When will people realise that HMG, MOD and RAF do not have a bottomless pit of money to pour into the CFs. This has been years in coming, reviewing of activities is something that needs doing and long overdue.
Why spent money on a small (overall) group of cadets undertaking so-called prestigious activities (aka Nijmegen, IACE, ACLC, trips abroad) when the standard 15-year old cadet and their squadron can’t operate for a lack of funding.
How do people think the money required can be found, external of RAF and RAFAC? Raise taxes! Again small number of people (CFs) benefiting from a widespread impact (general population).
Extra money from the RAF will have to be found from somewhere, cut backs across MOD are hitting home already, and can’t carry on as they are! The deeper they go, the more leave the forces.
What is needed; an Armed Forces or a CF? General public will say, in most cases, a strong Armed Forces!
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Also all functions of the defence have to find savings, a Gp Cpt friend has to find 15% in his function or has been warned there will be consequences
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There are other options for us.
At this point, sitting under the air force and being publicly funded is becoming a problem. Perhaps it’s time we looked into how being a separate entity would work?
If we were able to secure a block grant from the air force, we could then top-up from other sources in ways that aren’t possible at the moment because we “can’t mix” public and non-public funds. We could consider sponsorship, fundraise locally, raise subs slightly. While we can do this for some things currently, we can’t use non-public money to e.g. pay for a larger gliding fleet, accommodation (unless the whole event was non-public), etc.
Careful what we wish for, I guess, but worth thinking about.
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I know reserves (further up the chain than RAFAC) that have been told they can’t afford to pay them for a few exercises this coming year. Staff cadets often have the same responsibilities as staff members on smaller events and never see a penny (not even for travelling if in own vehicle). Perhaps those who do it for the money ought to question whether they’re in a position that actually reflects their mentality towards why they are there.
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I respect to the Nijmegen Marches prior to lockdown there was no public funding for this event. The GP fund assisted with military entry with messing and accommodation but entry, transport and some of the messing and accommodation was self funded. Civvi entry was entirely self funding. Also somewhere in the region of 500 staff and cadets entered the marches. It is only with the greater oversite and involvement from the centre and HQAC deciding to fund transport in 2023 has numbers gone down and funding increased. Nijmegen has gone from a mass participation activity to a prestigious niche event.
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So, rather than reducing cost to the public purse, we’ve actually increased the cadet cost-per-head on this national activity?
Not sure that’s the direction that we should be going in…
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