Imagine the resilience we could have as well
E.g. the paid staff team have walked out, - business continuity allows it to be supported by secondment from ACF or CCF to keep things ticking over.
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Morning folks!
The Bader vs Westminster debate has been looked at many times. Weāve engaged with various parties involved to look at options but the decision has always been made to keep our own platform.
Westminster is hugely influenced by Army requirements, the Sea Cadets whilst they use some of Westminster, built a whole range of other tools to supplement what they couldnāt get out of Westminster. The costs associated to moving to Westminster are also significant and far outweigh those of what it costs us to run our own platform.
The westminster platform is delivered primarily by contractors, they donāt have any volunteer involvement and with defence reviews about the use of contractors, it is unclear what this means for future westminster development currently.
When we talk about Bader, it is far more than just Westminster, Comdt referenced an ongoing project in relation to CadetNet. CadetNet is a project to bring together a number of digital platforms (predominantly Office 365 tools initially) for the sponsored cadet forces, this would be a huge step forward but it is acknowledged that there will be need for some organisation specific tools still, however better data integration options built on work we have already started is needed.
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I would regard this as a big positive.
Whilst you have volunteers as part of your end user group if you have volunteers as part of the design team you end up with just one groups narrow vision & it turns into the tail that wags the dog. This is how empires are built.
The cadet management system should be as simplest as possible & deliver what we need which is a system to manage our cadets, track their qualification & event attendance. It should also allow the paid staff to extract data in a useable, consistent & reportable way.
I loathe volunteer portal - it is an over complicated project that has made things harder for volunteers & paid staff. The work flows have just over complicated things as itās a nightmare when someone is changing status let alone the admin frustration with former cadets returning to the organisation & the insistence they use a paper system as they need the continuity of records
I would ask the question (although I suspect I know the answer) of how many CCF(RAF) volunteers were involved in the ongoing development of the RAFAC IT management systems?
Currently the IT systems do not work for the CCF & its killing the CcF(RAF) due to the double bureaucracy.
Iām not able to find stats but I suspect that itās also preventing established contingents gaining an raf section or even opening a new one up.
Itās this aspect which i feel is what will damage the Liklyhood of success of the 30-30 & undermine the governments policy & intent.
@Ben_Wakefield sorry if my last post comes across a little ranty - not personally directed at you (& I know youāve worked hard to develop something that works for the organisation) but I do get frustrated which some of the admin changes obsessing with volunteer portal thatās just making things difficult for volunteers & paid staff alike.
Couldnāt disagree more. It has made things much easier and as I said in my previous post, the API will solve most of the issues and negate the need for us to have to use both systems when on CCF activities. Frankly, I would rather come under the RAFAC then the Army for my CCF duties.
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Why should the information management and activity authorisation and control system for one cadet force be different from another cadet force? We all do the same thing, look after other people children and a military themed and MoD supported organisation. We also controlled by the same JSPs that the other MoD sponsored cadet forces are, what functionality dos the RAFAC do that the ACF does not?
If out parent service can work in a purple environment, why canāt the cadet forces?
Why canāt we all use or have access modnet? This is a bigger issue is only this week. While creating a TOPL, I was pointed by the office to their support page for creating a TOPL application. Sorry but your account does not have access to this resource, same with BAMS, same with modnet H&S page which came to light when the use of 12 by 12s were paused. We have to use the MoD systems with one hand behind our back.
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Although they work in a purple environment, the 4 forces are very different and in the case of JPA, there are numerous additional add-ons for single service specific requirements, so it isnāt really one system and the Services HR systems are not truly harmonised. The fact is with better data exchange between systems, it doesnāt matter if we have different IM systems, we simply need them to talk to each other, which is happening now and will only develop further.
I appreciate there is very much a personal preference element & likewise whilst we canāt have the tail wagging the dog we shouldnāt pivot or base our systems on outlier opinions - the whole signal vs noise analysis.
I find volunteer portal very frustrating for what I need it for & what I need to achieve which is mainly personnel management with joiners & leavers. The local paid staff are excellent in helping jumping through the hoops to achieve what we need but they likewise share frustrations.
(I did offer to send an email up the chain kicking off to complain about the processes on their behalf - the response was they had already sent one!).
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I canāt get my head round why we have to use SMS to add a cadet to Bader but Volunteer Portal to remove them.
Also Volunteer Portal to assign a Role to a CFAV but SMS to add permissions to that role.
Training all over the place.
Some of this might be down to transitions but some of it is a lack of clarity.
I donāt love SMS and the Volunteer Portal is easier to navigate but keeping in mind there are 2 separate log ins (pers account for VP and role for SMS) it is not reducing the admin burden for me.
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Well these are symptoms of the pace of development and the slow transition from one system to another.
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Valid gripe, but I think this is just because -at this moment in time- things are being transferred across to Volunteer Portal and therefore functionality is spread across both while that happens.
Not the case in SW, no join link sent, but they get converted to an applicant CI, details here - CI Appointment
In this particular instance itās cadets who have been left over 3 years converting to committee or CFAV rather than those who are still in.
Direct cadets to CFAV has been reasonably straight fwd.
This is causing all sorts of issues because the email & phone number they used when they were a cadet has now changed but you canāt easily update a discharged record & the 2FA screws up.
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Should we be holding cadet details for three years after they leave? I think not - there is no guarentee they will come back and this would breach GDPR regulations.
I believe that seven years use to be the retention requirement but might be related to retention for safeguarding purposes.
However that data supplied on the 3822a was provided for the management of their service as a cadet as authorised by their parent. The data should have been retained for that purpose & not ājust in caseā they reapply.
I would have thought you would have needed a separate declaration from the now adult person for permission to use that data & to update the data to their current information. At the very least the personal sensitive data should be purged after 10 years.
We keep TG forms for longer than thatā¦
For what purpose?
I belive we are legally required to keep all data for 7 years. Or, if the data relates to someone under 18, then kept until their 27th birthday.
This is in case any sort of claim is brought against the organisation.
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This is also my understanding
12 months after a cadet is discharged the record is āarchivedā so is removed from normal view and can only be re-instated by request.
Similar for TG forms but they are supposed to be sent to Wing/Region HQ for secure storage then disposal when the retention period has expired.
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I think itās 7 years after they turn 18 or 7 years after they leave as a cadet which ever is the later.
So if a cadet joined aged 12 & leaves at 20. Their the form from their first camp is retained for 15 years when they are 27. If they leave before 18 itās destroyed when they turn 25.
The reason is as you said about claims.
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