The CCF isn’t exactly a ‘gold’ standard that we in the ACF aspire to emulate.
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We’ve seen from the attitude of some of the seniors who have engaged on this forum that the they consider themselves to always be correct and CFAVs to always be wrong, or just moaning for a reason they’re too inexperienced (in life outside the wire) to appreciate.
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This can often be CFAV to CFAV too. Sqn Ldrs and Wg Cdrs who don’t seem to have any really world management skills, let alone volunteer management skills. They then fail to deal with anything when it comes to other CFAV ‘below’ them.
The majority of the issues I have had in this organisation have been from Sqn Ldrs acting where they shouldn’t. And often being backed up by OC Wing because they’re too close.
The SCC has 42% more CFAV than they did in 2021. We, the ATC, have haemorrhaged 21% of ours. That seriously needs to be understood and fixed.
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CFAV numbers are declining year on year for us.
See also: weekly brief saying they don’t have enough staff to pay the paltry mileage amount we get but will do their best.
I’ve just given up claiming. Instead, I just do fewer miles. I do less stuff. It’s such a faff, for such a small amount of money. Worth it years ago when I did thousands of miles a year for cadets. Not now though.
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Having been on the receiving end of this question it’s not one I much like to ask, but where the hell has the money gone?
Badges & rank slides from cadet direct/greenfrog?
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It’s not the money, it’s the people to process the claims.
Whom we have none off, as ‘we’ have no money to employ new staff.
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Okay, but that’s not necessarily the organisation’s fault. Many government funded organisations are having their funding restricted.
No, it’s not. The ‘we’ there is the UK in general. Ain’t got no money!
Point being, if the Gov wants us to increase in size by 30%, we need to stop this civil service recruitment pause, and get recruiting! Can’t have more cadets if we don’t get more CFAV. And CFAV are going to keep leaving as the civil service help gets worse.
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Orrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Actually build the tech that weve been promised for over a decade that allows planning and administration to be electronic, seamless and easy.
Efficency saving is equally as important and long term cheaper than recruiting.
It irritates me that in 2025. That the SNCO application isnt an automated process that is a few click of a buttons over hours and not 16 to 20 weeks from submitting papetwork. Like its turned out to be.
VA. Mileage shouldnt need any manual intervention given SMS knows where we live and what we attended etc
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That would be better!
I’d like to see the Air Cadet Charity issue a grant to get a few developers in on a years contract to get work done. Surely that’s doable without getting the CS into twist.
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Get recruiting, yes, but not civil servants. The ACF (RFCA) and SCC (MSSC) models both have many advantages over our CS dependency.
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Im sure theres even over 18 nerdy cadets that knowthe relevant language and would be a good opportunity to practice their skills
As nice as that might be as a side project, we just need people doing this for 40 hours a week that really know what they’re doing.
The volunteer team is great, and have done loads. But we just need full-time developers to get it done, and stop playing.
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I do agree!
I work for a company (albeit the consulting side) that builds retail systems for organisational planning and management. So ive seen how proper dev and engineering functions are set up.
Definitly with the team we have theyve done an outstanding job.
The quick win would be to pool into a single cadet unit management system so developments & systems are invested in by all the cadet forces.
In this case Westminster has won with its use by four of the five mod sponsored cadet forces & new products such as my cadet.
It’s VHS vs Betamax but in this case Bader is Betamax
Time to stop wasted effort on a defunct family of systems.
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The pause in SC recruiting and the gapped posts across RAFAC has been identified as a strategic threat to this organisation.
I used to be pretty anti this opinion, but as time goes on I’m coming round to it being the right decision.
We’re fully into sunk cost fallacy now, though. So much effort has been put into Bader. But I’m less and less convinced it’s the right place to be putting effort.