Hot on the heels of tents, the rumour around is that CFMs (and other medals) may be ‘delayed’ for some.
Apparently, the Holmes Medals Review of 2012 mentioned as an aside, that ‘realignment’ of long service medals across all Government Departments to a standard 15 years should be considered. People have been avoiding doing anything, but by all accounts, a new Monarch is seen as the ideal time to amend Royal Warrants etc and the Cabinet Office are now keen to push things through. The upshot means that the Police and Fire services may see their qualifying service reduced from 20 years, on the other hand, the CFM and VRSM eligibility time will increase.
The term ‘unpalatable decisions’ has been mentioned around what will happen to those who have received medals under the 12 or 10 year eligibility, but who now don’t meet the new rules; hand them back temporarily has been discussed!
Medals are published as part of a list which results in the list being delayed if there are hold ups. Particularly if there is requirement for the receipt to to be included in a specific list.
Currently it’s Boris’ resignation honours list that’s causing the snarl up as there is currently a bun fight of how many get approved.
It’s not just a hold up due to an Honours List, it’s a change of eligibility which could delay the award to some in the 12 - 15 year service bracket and/or see the return of medals already awarded
I’d pegged it as an April Fools. There was a recent review on medals for the police & that reduced eligibility time in recognition that in todays world you would not be recognising anyone unless you reduced it (which would have spoilt the whole point of the medals)
For a fool I would have gone down the route that the criteria has being made stricter & eligibility was on number of years where you had qualified the minimum service subject to jubilee. Evidence was needing to be provided for each qualifying year similar to the jubilee.
Queue all the comments bout records not going back that far, unfair on sudden change etc
Always more believable that a process is being made more bureaucratic than being scrapped or changed.
