Hi guys, I’m looking for some help and insight regarding the CI application process and how long it should take. The timescale for my application is as follows:
Jan '16 - Attend first parade night back after the holidays, express my interest in volunteering and paperwork is requested.
April '16 - Recieve paperwork, complete it and have CO interview within the first week of the month.
May '16 - Have WSO interview, again within the first week of the month.
June '16 - CO and WSO finally meet together and sign the necessary parts of the application forms and promise to post them immediately. This again takes place within the first week of the month. Later in the month my references receive, complete and return their forms.
Present - DBS tracking website states that they have not received forms with my reference number.
Is this a typical example of the application process or what?
For comparison when I joined the forces admittedly many years ago, I applied, had an interview/medical/testing/security check and started Recruit Training in about 3 months.
I was allowed to attend the unit as a “guest” before I completed the forms but since the CO interview I haven’t as I’m now a “potential staff member” and I’m starting to get totally demoralised about the whole thing, I feel like I’ve wasted half the year and counting… The staff on the unit have had to make phone calls to chase pretty much every stage of my application up.
I feel with my past ACO and forces service and the fact I have previously worked with children I have a lot to offer and still want the role but feel completely fed up with how long the process is taking.
All you can do it chase it up! It’s too common and is the main reason why people give up, if you just keep on asking then they will soon get bored and have to do something
i’m afraid that we found the opposite - the more you chase, the more the inertia digs its heels in.
we’ve lost 3 potentials in the last 18 months to this. one probably wasn’t a great tragedy to lose, but the other two looked very promising - one a late 30’s ex-RN officer, and another with all her NGB tickets to MIC and owner of an outdoor activities company. both ex-cadets.
Depends which wing your in and how you go about chasing up paperwork. I tend to chase things up all the time and it works for me, if I just leave it like I have I the past, nothing gets done
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks it’s slow going!
The CO and WSO interviews were maybe half an hour each maximum, the WSO told me the DBS check takes 4-6 weeks to complete and I know my referees returned their forms within a week of receiving them. For me personally I believe these are the key things that decide whether I’m suitable for appointment so what has the ACO been doing about my application for the last 7 months?
it has the same initials as the Football Association.
there is a genuine defence in that the body (HQAC) which does the ‘making you a CI’ thing has been hollowed out by staff cuts in the last half-dozen years, and there are people there doing two, three or even four peoples jobs - that however doesn’t help you, and it doesn’t help OC’s who are watching potential staff members walk off into the sunset because they just can’t be bothered to wait around any longer.
I have never quite understood this “HQAC are snowed under” reasoning. It seems that everything is put on paper forms at squadron and wing level (or in the cases I used to deal with, VGS level) which then goes to HQAC where it sits in someone’s in tray until they have time to deal with it. Dealing with it is typing out more bits of paper and putting some things in a computer.
Surely most of the entering of data could be done at squadron level and the whole thing properly computerised. That would mean that once originated the progress could be tracked at squadron level. It might even improve accuracy; my application to be a CGI took about nine month to be processed and when the paperwork finally arrived there were three errors on it all of which had been correctly filled in on the original paperwork.
Later as a VGS adjutant I found that some of the HQAC staff were the rudest and most unhelpful people I have ever encountered, their main interest seeming to be moving blame elsewhere. There were some good ones, but most found volunteers and cadets a distraction from whatever they thought their job was.
Reducing staff levels and replacing with technology is a fact of life.
6 months from wanting you first attendance to getting the paperwork is ridiculous. Our wing has monthly volunteer induction evenings, means that process take at most a month (say two if its on a night you can’t make).
Had some DBS checks this year, they took around 3 weeks to turn around.
Unfortunately sounds all too familiar.
It is ironic that a few seem to sail through and the majority hit all manner of blocks.
The biggest block we get is WSOs getting off their backsides, to do anything. You’d think they’d be all over new staff like a rash. CI do you fit the “we’ll get them into uniform asap” profile? I’ve seen a trend for “awkward” applicants to be side-lined, with paperwork ‘lost’.
I don’t get the notion that HQAC are rushed off their feet and why things sit in in-trays for ages. Most people in a similar role would be on competency and similar if they allowed things to slide like HQAC and the paid employees in the chain seem to. I cannot believe that their workload is that great all day, every day. Whenever I’ve been to WHQ there seems to be more chat and nail filing going on than work.
With respect to the archaic nature of application system. Our son has just got a job in a school as support staff and he didn’t have to put pen to paper, except for signing contract and pension forms. Application forms emailed. References were done on the phone or via email. When he went for interview took his DBS documents and they sent him a link via email as soon as he was appointed … DBS on the door mat 4 days later. We were surprised as we thought a school would need things signed in pen. We are about 20 years behind the curve. Make the application all electronic, call people for an interview (potentially en-masse somewhere) with Sqn Cdrs and WSOs there, do an online DBS and get people onboard asap not 2 or more months as in the modern world this is nonsense, especially for volunteer roles. For an organisation apparently clamouring for staff our process doesn’t suggest it. I know people will bang on about stopping “the wrong” people getting in, but having an interview day would appease this line of thinking.
This one is easy. In our brave new World where the IT is started at squadron level, the WSO is informed by the system and the last paragraph states “If this process is not completed by the WSO within 28 days it is assumed that the application is approved”
As for the “wrong” people, I would suggest that a fair number of the people making the decisions already are the “wrong” people. Volunteers with a rank obsession (you get more braid on your uniform by being a WSO) are perhaps not the best people to be making these choices.
Some time ago I had dealings with a WSO who’s only justification for his (in my opinion useless) existence was to say loudly and often that he had “Thirty five years of uniformed service”. I could always tell when he was on holiday as everything went well for two weeks.
You lot must in a really naff wing. On majority (and there’s always one idiot in the team (tip: if you think this isn’t true, you’re probably the idiot)) our WSOs are helpful and muck in. Ind you, we have a lot of wing led activities. Probably too much at times (rich pickings for the cadets causes complacency).
Actually the guy I was referring to was in another wing, but VGS adjutants have to deal with all sorts.
In his case I feel Oliver Cromwell said it best “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately … Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”
Of course their are good guys, but it is probably high time that WSOs stayed for a limited time and then went back to running a squadron for a while, just to remember what it is like.
While we are drifting away from the topic anyway, does anyone know what Region are for (apart from running sports events between wing and corps level)?
So the DBS tracker shows my certificate is in the process of being printed and I know I have to take it into my SQN for the staff there to digitally send or snail mail it to Wing or something…
What happens now? Am I appointed a CI subject to successful completion of the DBS, so when I receive my certificate in the post or will my appointment come once Wing have received it and made a decision?
What happens with the BASIC weekend? Is that up to me to organise once I’m appointed or will Wing sort that and tell me when to attend? Also would I be able to attend my next one a year earlier than the 5 year renewal so I can carpool with a fellow staff member who is due their’s in about 4 years?
Finally when will my service as a CI be dated from? When I applied? The WSO/CO interview? Receipt of the DBS certificate by me or Wing? When?
