i am pulling numbers out of thin air.
but yes, i am considering those on camp.
72 for main
28 for extended.
100 CFAV total.
ahh yes - of course. since since becoming a parent i haven’t been doing any activities to claim a F80 so missed that change as i haven’t put in a claim to notice!
edit: for completeness
400 days claimed at Fg Off @ £96/day = £38,400
absolutely this.
a “basic” coach for the neighbouring Wings I expected was likely in the region of £500 each way so for the likes of any Wings/Region outside of Bristol & Glos, Dorset and Somerset, ThamesValley, Warwickshire&Brum Wgs the coach alone would be well into four figures.
there is then the F1771s - not all staff travel on the Wing/Region coaches, particularly those on Extended camp. The Campsite Manager travels in from Norfolk which at 170 miles might only be a claim of £50 but that is just one of a dozen or more i expect who were travelling in by car for extended.
I would say that there would be a fair few at RIAT are claiming at Acting rank and not Fg Off. There are also quite a few Wing Commanders there which will bump up the rate a bit.
Whatever the eventual sum is, it’s a fat wedge, and will be ‘main effort’ for a significant number of people in the Corps.
Why is it that I think that if my Sqn/Wing/Region fancied putting on an equally staffed event of hillwalking , watersports, camping, a bit of fieldcraft, perhaps a shoot, at Otterburn/Keilder Water-forest, we’d have to do a lot more justification for it in terms of the aims and outcomes than RIAT does…?
Although I understand to some extent of the reasoning behind certain aspects of CACE funding etc. What I don’t understand is if an event is classed as “non-core” and therefore non VA claimable why are there SME’s and drives on events, mainly speaking about Sport within RAFAC here.
Sport has always been outside the funding system, with costs falling to civilian committees (aka sports and welfare committees in some parts).
There are some more curious anomalies such as radio (compulsory part of the classification training) which has no funding for equipment, or air rifle, likewise and clearly part of the PTS. Though the latter might change, funding wise.
Sport has never attracted 1771 or F80 payments with the exception for the Wing Sports Officer and their nominated “SNCO Discip” for the event - at least that is how it has been for decades in our Wing.
the CACE form/system does not indicate a priority in what we should be doing, but does indicate the types of event which the MOD is/n’t happy to finance (for whatever reason)
I get that part however why do we insist on having a list of activities to push out but not to be prepared to take the cost for. Pre-Covid as a cadet you could represent your Sqn, Wing and Region in sports however staff taking any of those to events for usually what is over a 12 hour day depending on location and usually aren’t just “babysitting” but are taking part in time-keeping or assisting the event and you get told thanks to the volunteers… etc etc. It might be a separate topic but why is sport on the RAFAC calendar, they are prepared to cover for the WSO/RSO but not the bodies that turn up to make sure the ratio cover is there/provide 1st Aid cover etc.
I think the whole process is rubbish, and in time will cost more in safety fails. HQ RAFAC have 100% failed to grasp we are a volunteer organisation and we should not be limiting staff numbers to events which are safety critical. I have a number of reasons for this:
If we plan to minimums and staff drop out, we are then below minimums and therefore are outside safe system of training and/or safety ratios.
Staff have a limited “life” within the RAFAC. If we don’t get a good throughput of new staff who want to get trained and qualified we can’t continue activities. Example - if CFAV places on shooting are limited, we can’t drop the number of RCOs, Safety Supervisors or Medics, therefore we drop the new unqualified staff - ergo no staff development.
Cadet activities are our reason to be here. We shouldn’t be doing a Business Case (what a CACE is) for our main effort. Tesco doesn’t do a business case each time they want to groceries through a till!
We are volunteers, for years we have had admin burden reduction. Now we have a process which is entirely Civil Service based and lends no additional safety or oversight to what we are delivering. All activities are approved on SMS, the CACE requirements should be easily managegable through the standard SMS process - ie when approved at wing level. If the Wing SME thinks the staffing is approvopriate for the activity, sign it off. At the moment we have non-SME Civil Servants signing off whether staffing is approproate - they are not the ones who will be in court if something happens.
I genuinly believe the cost-cutting, will eventually lead to accidents due to too few staff on activities,and at that point it won’t be the CS who are sitting pretty having cut their budgets by 50% being answerable, it’ll be the CFAV in court.
This is one of the main reasons why my time with the RAFAC is quickly drawing to a close.
This is one of the biggest issues I have with it. Staff not being allowed to develop due to numbers being limited on an activity. This usually results in those staff being allowed to attend but without mileage/VA.
There is also the point you mention about capacity, we need some more capacity than the rules say at times due to local conditions, stress in role or even just being a IT geek who doesn’t do a lot and then all of a sudden spending all day running around the field. You’ll be knackered so having spare staff helps.
Human factors will become a bigger and bigger issue.
i definitely second this and have had discussions about this several times over the years - shooting is one example, but can so very easily be seen a a clique because of it appears like a close door - only allowed in if a ticket/qualification is held and so anyone interested has to fight through the door to be noticed and only accepted once they have a ticket/qualification.
an approach based on “minimums” only exacerbates this approach and in 5-10 years time predict there will be a shortage of newly qualified persons as there hasn’t been the newbies coming through and in 15-20 years time very few “experienced” persons with qualifications as they’ll have left and only be those who were determined to get involved who got through
i have always had the same approach to change: what benefit is there to the Cadet
replace “Cadet” with “Customer” and those with a business mind may understand it a bit more…?
I still believe this is essentially a managed decline. Limit the output, let the activities tail off as they become unviable or due to lack of suitably qualified/experienced volunteers. Results in a smaller corps doing significantly less expensive and risky activities, that is more easily managed and governed with a reduced CS/FTRS budget. Wins all round, except for the cadets.
Just wait the current govt out, people will forget the announcement. Nobody’s going vote for their MP based on cadet numbers. Simply doesn’t matter to them.
The ACO has had a culture of decline, both managed and fortuitous catastrophe, for 30 years - a couple of years of mere ministerial policy isn’t going to get in the way of that.
Look at every single serious foul up - political, engineering, policing - it’s never ‘a thing’, it’s always ‘lots of things’, which is culture.
Culture trumps strategy, or policy, every single day. Want change? Change culture…
There isn’t a Wing Commander in the entire org who hasn’t spent their *entire’ career, from Acting Pilot Officer upwards, in a culture that wasn’t about trying to make things more difficult for Sqn’s, and cheaper for MOD.
A mere email from MOD isn’t going to change that ingrained culture…