I think that Jon Ford would have been kicking a few backsides had he still been Commandant. 
Let’s get rid of all rules & regulations in the RAFAC then we won’t need direction & guidance from those in the Chain of Command…
Good grief apparently, you really don’t like the Corps & would like it & all those who strive to deliver a worthwhile experience to young people to disappear.
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You are the CAC and I claim my £5.
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I agree completely with you that any sensible organisation takes into account the views of those who contribute to it. However the examples you quote do not appear, at first viewing , to have relevance to those who act as volunteers with any organisation. We are not employed by the RAFAC , the RAFAC are not part of the representative democracy system and we are not shareholders. However, as volunteers, we often make an emotional attachment to the organisations we support. We (and I include myself) then often react to events from an emotional rather than professionally detached perspective.
The RAFAC are, in the main, funded by the RAF. The link below should take you to ACMB minutes from Sep 16. Annex A the Financial Report indicates a total budget in excess of £ 26.8M (plus of course the hidden support costs carried by the RAF). At Annex B is the report on the GPF indicating spending of £1.5M to support key activities such as sport, BTEC, DofE, Regional Activity Centres, Personal Accident Insurance, CI polo shirts, IACE etc.
And my point ? Any organisation such as the RAF, which sponsors an activity for more than 94% of its declared budget and carries the legal responsibility for its outputs will want to have ultimate control of those outputs. It exercises that control by putting in place people who understand how the RAF works . That inevitably means that most have little or any knowledge of how the RAFAC actually delivers for cadets which leads to many decisions that appear, from the coalface, to be illogical and badly managed. That is the penalty for the funding.
Alternatives? If the volunteer body as a whole wish to commit to running the organisation, as they would like to, move to the Sea Cadet model with individual units as independent charities responsible for their own funding and with minimal support from the parent service.
With all the current difficulties and challenges I know which one I prefer.
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Alternatives? If the volunteer body as a whole wish to commit to running the organisation, as they would like to, move to the Sea Cadet model with individual units as independent charities responsible for their own funding and with minimal support from the parent service.
I am not sure how you might explain the fact that in Scotland, all RAFAC Charities are required to be registered because that is the Law - the RAFAC has no discretion.
The Sea Cadets (that is the each individual Charity’s Trustees) appear to have registered all their Charities, even though in England & Wales, some are below the threshold for compulsory registration.
The Sea Cadets have always not had MOD funding, if you discount the Training Ships and HMS Bristol, input from the RFCA and admin support, because the RN has an expensive surface and sub fleet deterent to maintain.
I think if you do your full research there was a decision at one point (60/70s) for the SCC to break away from the Navy and integrate more with the merchant navy… this led to changing in the SCC organisation to what it is now.
Aries,
You may be pleased to know that following further research you are right and i am wrong. The Marine Society and Sea Cadets does indeed get a grant in aid from the RN (£10.135M in 2016-17)
However, my main point remains. We either sit within the RAF or outside it with ( hopefully) RAF support. I am for staying.
How much control etc does the RN exert for the money and is their a dearth of retired RN officers faffing around?
It would be interesting to know, maybe I will try to find out but as I said before, ALL SCC Units have their supporting Charities registered with the Charity Commission so that in theory there is a more open accountability under Charity Law, plus they also occasionally place adverts for experienced external Trustees.
Slightly different to having retired staff getting nominated for nice little jobs on the Board, where they can easily get confused as to which side of the line they are working.
The RN agrees a Memorandum of Understanding with the Marine Society & Sea Cadets. This document, freely available at https://www.ms-sc.org/about-us, sets out what the RN expects it’s money (as a Grant in Aid) to be used for. During the tenure of the MOU the RN has little control over how the MSSC actually use the money, although all parties expect it to be used as agreed. If the MSSC was wildly out of control with the GIA then the renewal of the MOU and a further GIA would be a highly contentious issue. For instance the last MOU was due for renewal in 2017 and this kept getting ‘put back’ as “negotiations” couldn’t be agreed between the RN and MSSC. It mostly will have come down to the reduction in the GIA as budgets are generally shrinking, however, the more cynical think the RN are closely monitoring the activities of the MSSC and haven’t been completely bowled over by the direction Sea Cadets is going. This is conjecture, of course, but if the MSSC wants, indeed it needs, the GIA from the RN in order to operate the Sea Cadets, then they will have to adopt the RN vision within their strategy and follow the agreement(s) set out in the MOU. The MSSC cannot afford to cut off it’s nose in spite of it’s face, as can be seen in the annual accounts: the GIA is crucial to SCC operations.
Since Sea Cadets is a wholly civilian managed youth organisation, all policies are open and democratic in terms of appointing roles (regarding the retired RN officers faffing about!). The only exception are a serving RN Captain as Captain Sea Cadets, who is the Director of Ops for Sea Cadets and reports to the CEO of the MSSC, a Royal Marine in the training department to advise on RM matters within the syllabus, the Area Officers, now FTRS, who report to the Captain but manage the Area within MSSC rules and policy, and a few RN personnel within the offshore fleet who, again, comply with MSSC rules and policy and civilian Maritime and Coastguard Agency legislation for operating commercial ships.
Some balance and practical understanding!
Interesting to follow the links, and it wold appear the MSSC has no control over unit level funds, but the one thing apparent is that there is no Unit level parting with cash and giving it to two intermediately levels who do not appear to actively fundraise themselves, and by all accounts appear not to fully comply with the rules about the use of charitable funds.
As Warkitten seemed to infer, you need Rules and Regulations, but surely you actually need to follow them to the letter.
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And how exactly do Wings & Regions not comply with the rules, do they not receive requests for funds that have to be voted on, I am aware of a number of Wings where funding requests are handled in exactly that manner (just like a Sqn Cdr asking for funds from the CivCom)?
The intimation at a meeting I was at was that the donation was mandatory rather than a decision for a Squadron Civ Com to accept or reject giving a ‘donation’ to the Wing Civ Com. There has to be, I believe, under charity law a demonstrable benifit to the cadets that the Civ Com is constituted for not the wider ACO community.
it does seem to be a case of the RN wanting to eat its cake and keeping it, by having the MSSC bound to it via the grant.
This is how you could see the RAF acting petulantly if the ATC broke free.
Does the grant provide a means to getting uniforms?
Well there’s a killer comment.
The answer is yes … they should but don’t.
If the suggestion is that Wings hold compliant votes to govern charitable spending of the monies they hold then you are very much mistaken! They do not.
There is rarely, if ever, consultation with the Squadron Chairman who form the trusteeship of the Wing and certainly never a vote. Accepting that not every last decision can be by committee, there is as little maybe one vote per year and that is typically to pass the accounts through which no one typically has an opportunity to question.
Why?
Because the timings of internal procedures to uniform RAFAC require that Wings receive approval at an AGM held significantly before the final accounts can be ready for presentation. Has been that way for years. So a rough draft is cobbled together and voted through and then is totally open to later amendment without trustee knowledge. It is a sham and one of the largest weaknesses of RAFAC. On the’civilian’ side.
There is no incentive to change it as it is easier for the Wing Commander to phone his mate the Wing Chair and agree the dosh in private without scrutiny. Example? over in the Eastern Region, Wing funds were used just a few years ago to purchase a minibus ‘for Wing use only’. You can imagine the cost and that all came from the charitable monies intended for the cadets, the idea being that after a couple of years it would be available for wider use. Can anyone really see that getting past a needy Sqn chairman in a consultative trustee vote?
That is just one very large and important example of how Wing at least do not comply with the rules and if Wing Chairs are that malleable, then there is every reason to expect little improvement from Regional Chairs largely consisting of ex-uniforms with unquestioning allegiance.
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Surely the Wing committee (where they exist) are like the Sqn Ctees able to approve expenditure requests by a vote of the Ctee members & not have to consult with all the Sqn Chairs?
My question to Aries revolves around his previous (& often repeated) claims that Wings spend money on things they should not, not on how it’s agreed upon.
As I understand it the Sqn Chairmen are the de facto Wing Committee and should be consulted on spends and amendments therein. It’s how its happened on the squadrons I’ve been on so why Wings could operate differently is odd. TBH if it was found that a Sqn CO and Chairman were just doing things on the nod, there would be problems, not least with the Squadron Committee.
At work we get emails with ‘voting’ for options for nights out, to save going round asking everyone. So if the Wing committee execs wanted to change something, it could be voted on very easily.
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The Wing Committee is something that was quietly introduced a few years ago and is largely irrelevant (or should be) top the lawful spending of charitable monies. Some would say, like the ACMB, it has never really been needed and only has the Wing Chair as a representative on it. He/she should then take requests to Sqn Chairs for approval/vote.
Any deviation from this is taking charitable funds and removing those who have a legal responsibility from the decision.
Teflon is correct in his reflection that the Wing finance procedure should mirror the Sqn model whereby trustees must be consulted.
I would venture that your question to Aries are inextricably linked, because it is the maladministration surrounding the agreement process that encourages and breeds the incorrect assumption that it is a spending pot for the Wing Commander and Wing Chair - again remembering that the Wing Committee has no legal remit or authority to sanction any spend from its charitable funds.
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Even in the latest ‘fudge’ of ACP-11 the principle clearly remains viz.
‘Composition. The Wing Committee consists of a representative, normally the Committee Chairman, for each squadron within the wing plus the Wing Commanding Officer and Chaplain as
ex-officio members without voting rights. Other individuals including staff members may from time
to time be invited to meetings for a specific purpose. They will have no voting rights.’.
To clarify my previous comment, Wing Committees have been around for a time … I meant the appearance of Wing Management Committees which apparently are a private arrangement in parallel.