Cost/Benefit of Cadet Activities

Is there any credence to what some of the meme pages are posting currently - footprint review & cutting of an activity?

Just having a look only nsfw & staff cadet centre have posted anything recently.

Implication is that W&W are having a building review as their buildings might not be fire safe.

Cryptic reference to another activity being cut based on finance. Might be fieldcraft / pyro related but a lot of work seems to be going into that so doubtful.

Does anyone know the cost break down per activity. I suspect flying & glider to me the most but not sure what three & four would be so again not sure which would be in the crosshairs for the accountants Axe.

(Although JL could be in a sticky situation is staff cadet age is reduced down but this is speculating & getting to epileptic trees situation)

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I think this would be really difficult to actually calculate properly. There are so many costs we just don’t see or even think about. Running a blank/pyro course. How much does it actually cost to use a load of smokes and blanks? Cost to the MOD of purchasing. Cost of storage. Paying the people in the armoury where you can go and pick it up. The MT costs might be a bit simpler, but again, there’s employment costs that just wouldn’t be added to the mix.

Flying and gliding will certainly be at the top though! And working out how much that actually costs would be a challenge!

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Used to be that JL was second behind flying I believe. Don’t know if the new format has shifted the league though.

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Sorry was thinking more strategic & top down.

How much of the air cadet budget is allocated to each activity stream?

So you would have

Aviation - air craft flying, fuelling, maintenance certification
Fieldcraft - DTE booking & pyros
Shooting - weapon maintenance, armoury alarms, ammunition expenditure
Radio - equipment maintenance & OFCOM licenses etc. badges

What’s the budget codes & what’s in each pot?

From a bean counter perspective would be looking at allocated funds per eligible cadet
E.g if each cadet is to get one flight a year, divide the aviation budget by the number of cadets over 13&3.

Radio is not centrally funded. It is a core activity in that it is part of First Class (and onwards PTS) but not in the 300.

Cyber is similar…

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Running the NACATC must cost quite a bit

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CAC is having this worked carried out at the moment, what is the price per activity per cadet and whats the benefit of it.

In a couple of years ill think youll find corps activity SMEs having to justify why we do it as an organisation…all of this to move money towards flying again.

This isnt a cost cutting exercise just reprioritising fund usage in the corps.I think it Could be some activities we do for free may not be funded and have to be funded by Regions/Wings/Individuals

I guess the pots got smaller and needs to be soent differently.

Unless they go outside the military flying system / 2FTS or allow us to do so, where will the money be spent? It’s a closed system and we presumably can’t ‘buy’ additional capacity.

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You can renegotiate the contract that runs the Tutors and pay for a bigger share of the flying hours vs the UAS’.

I’ve got a vague memory of someone quoting it was a 55:45 %age share in the UAS’ favour.

Is choir camp dead yet?

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I wish.

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I can only see that fly (pardon the pun) if the overall hours could be increased?

Its more gliding we can influence, although if i remember correctly the tutor contract is up for tender soonish

It was mostly infra stuff to make it more accesible.

But yeah there a cost vs reward anysis going on, which if you regard the RAFAC as a business is a healthy thing to do periodically.

Space & cyber are cheap (actually, don’t know what we paid for the space courses…)

Thankyou TBH even basic cost mapping would make sense I.e. how much is left for each activity.

I would have thought Road Marching would have been quite cheap.

A huge danger with this cost/activity stuff is that it ignores the quality of experience - 30+ years later I can remember my first glider flight and everything about being on that airfield on a sunny day, eating my lunch in the shade of a gliders wing, the first time time I did a CQB range with blank (RAF Regiment, Germany) - these are visceral memories, I can still feel, smell those experiences.

A simulator?

Better to go to one night a week, chopping a load of crap, and keep the really good stuff.

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I completely agree. Cost shouldn’t be the only factor

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Well said! Something might cost 5/10/30x as much per session, or per cadet, but some of those are the absolute best experiences going.

My big memories would certainly be going gliding, annual camps and overseas camps. The latter probably didn’t actually cost that much from the public purse at all actually!

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I think what will happen is will see a refocussed core activity list which will be funded via acp300 etc. Then everything else will be desirable or what ever the last tier will be, which will be down to regions/wings/sqns if they want to do it, if so they fund it.

But thats just my opinion. All CAC mentioned to the WWO Conf was gaining an understanding of cost of activity per cadet to make a more informed decision on elements.

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