ACTO 13

Yesterday on the announcements ACTO 000 updated to include ACTO 013.

So i open the link and have a look what ACTO 013 is
13 EXTENDED SQUADRON FOOTPRINT AUTHORISATION POLICY POLICY & PLANS

So i think this is worth a read. I go to SharePoint and click on ACTO only to find there is no ACTO 013 listed.

What is the point in updating the index and not uploading the ACTO?

It reserves the ACTO number for the policy…

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^^^this

Then what is wrong in putting pending approval of something in the index?

the index is there to indicate what policies are assigned against which references (in this case ACTO number) not to indicate which documents exist, what state it is in or highlight the latest version number

It’s been published now with an IBN

I would say the opposite. The index says what is where and how to find it and not a wish list of what will appear at some point in the future.

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Ooooo good.

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The TSA is going to be busy.

(you’re all very welcome ;))

Associated SMS functionality is under development where the TSA (or others at the Regional level) can add the approved ESF details to the unit information page…working on it!

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Be interesting to see how many push it out to another member of staff at Regional level and how many attempt it themselves. Seems silly for this to be held at Region, far too much real estate to understand the request properly. Wing level would have been a better choice.

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I’d say that as I’ve just read it, this has potentially ended an awful lot of perfectly safe, appropriate minor activities that go on outside the Squadron gates.

What if an area within the ESF is on common land? Never going to get landowner approval for that! Another example, immediately next to my Squadron, is a public car park, indeed our fence boundaries it. Most evenings it is largely empty, and is brilliantly street lit, making it a lovely parade ground. So I now need ESF approval to do drill in there? That will be fun, all the mean while the skate boarders carry on regardless…

Quite a lot of the time, common land is still managed by the local council, so still an entity to contact.

We have some complete and utter half wits running the organisation. There must be people; the TSAs and associated seat warmers in the Army, who have so little to do, that this is being invented. Atypical public sector; invent a job and then find something for it to do.
It will be interesting when someone is told they can’t use common / public land they’ve used for decades with no problems from anyone.
Local councils will love all this and find it as mind-numbingly banal as we do.

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This isn’t being invented at all… It’s a long standing MOD policy which our lot have only just discovered that we should have been following for years.
It’s also one of those MOD policies which doesn’t take into account the difference in the way the Cadet Forces operate.

I agree, but by time we have written to the Council, the letter has hopefully landed on the desk of the correct person, they have got round to reading it, and then decided they can answer it either way, and then actually replied, how much time and activities will we have lost?

Long standing or not, why do we have to?
If it’s “only just been discovered” and a burning need to do it there couldn’t have been anything untoward that has happened since the inception of the ADCC/ATC, which begs the question, why now? I would suggest because they’re has not been someone to dump it on.
I’ve never understood the need for TSAs and IMO they are making things up and in this case it seems “discovering something” to keep these busy and able to justify a salary.
Again in a time when admin is supposed to be reduced for the volunteers, something comes along that means more, not less. Maybe I’ve got the old saying wrong and in fact more is less.
Is it not ironic that we have recently not had the need to do anything special to walk on public footpaths and use public camping grounds, but now it seems we need to get permission to use a playing field/recreation ground for a night of sport or compass work, no doubt walking on public pavements and footpaths, the very same that cadets will have walked along, will also need permission from the council. If this makes sense to anyone (outside HQAC) in the real world I’d be surprised. The acid test, mention to someone not connected to the ATC or military what we have to do and if they say that makes sense, fine, but if not then it makes no sense. My wife laughs at the crass stupidity of what gets puked from HQAC and other people I mention it to are equally disparaging and question the motives of people supposedly meant to be encouraging young people to do things.

You tell your car insurance company where you live and where you park your car - because they want to assess the financial risk they are carrying. We tell the MOD (who for all intents and purposes provide our insurance) via RAFAC channels where we carry out training… Because they carry the financial risk of our activities.

On the topic of TSAs, I have welcomed visits from and conversations with ours. They’re always enlightening, and have been very helpful in clarifying pathways to enable activities, making things far easier and safer than trying to muddle through. It’s arrogance of the highest order to not be open to advice and guidance from a PROFESSIONAL SQEP. Let’s not forget we’re talking about highly experienced people who have done all this stuff, to far higher and riskier levels, for years.

It is possible to be too cynical Teflon… Even in this organisation.

By all means call this out for being an over the top requirement for our purposes - because for the most part it is - but lay the blame where it belongs. With HQ Land.

The policy makes very much sense when applied as it was intended, which is so that the Army are aware of who was in training in the area when they get an angry letter and a claim for compensation from some irate farmer whose cattle have broken legs from falling into an unauthorised hole dug by some squaddie…

The problem here is not the policy of TOPL; it’s that the cadet forces - taking 20 cadets for a bit of Nav training in the local park - were being expected to conform to the same requirements as a Company of Mechanised Infantry driving vehicles over leased land.

The move to waive the requirement for certain training is a positive step - it just needs to be better thought out and more sensibly written.

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You are right it is over the top, but HQAC should be saying to HQ Land you are being complete tools and not just going along with it. It’s irritating that HQAC haven’t which is why I feel they are looking for things to justify jobs somewhere, as there isn’t really enough guts in the jobs to be able to justify them.
Where you say we should have been doing it, is probably due to the ACF having been doing it due to the direct Army link and us not, ergo doing things more sensibly.
I would question the need to let people know about doing things in the local area, as it removes flexibility. We, probably like hundreds of sqns, have been doing things for years in places that we now have to ask permission for and ask people who have no idea about the area we are in if it’s OK, which is stupid. The ESF should be a 10 mile radius of the sqn HQ.
As I say in times where we are supposed to have been reducing admin, all that seems to have happened is we get more. Probably why it’s not been pursued with any real meaning, as it can’t really be reduced.

I’ve met our TSA a couple of times and not felt he was needed or added any value on either occasion. I got the impression he’d only turned up to make lt look like he was doing something. All he did was get in the way. I am not easily impressed by people supposedly qualified/experienced, until they show they are. It was quite clear he had come to pick holes in what we do and wasn’t able to, so just made a nuisance of himself, which is very professional.