I led to believe that one school enrols one entire year in the CCF, regardless if they will attend or not…
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I guess the issue is you or @tmmorris don’t know whether this is a school where CCF is a compulsory activity or not. If it is, then the school can legitimately claim for them and their lack of attendance is then a truancy issue for the school to deal with
Not if they aren’t attending, though. Prior to Westminster CCF grants and resource allocation was based on establishments, as long as you stayed within something like 90% of the figure (otherwise they would revise the establishment down). Now, cadets have to attend, and marking cadets as present when they are absent is very clear fraud.
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Ah, I see - I was thinking about it much more holistically
No, the new Mk4s are specifically marinised to operate in the littoral, delivering RM and SF and doing things like JPR. They’re also used across defence, not just for the Navy. Also the whole Merlin fleet are ace and we need more of them, not less 
Outlook for 2021:
Expect more consolidation of ATC units. Hub and spoke (Squadron and flights) is going to be pushed massively.
Uniform supply is a massive issue; may accelerate a move to alternative funding and more regular MTP use / hybrid uniform dress. Will also solve growing concern about culture and ethos surrounding some uniform obsessed CFAV and associated treatment of cadets.
Huge push on space. Aerospace Academy at Syerston to be resurrected as an internal unit.
A big link up on sustainability to be announced.
Potential hard cadet exit at 18th birthday. More open pathway to UAS.
Don’t mention the aeroplane. Gliding on a financial knife edge.
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Would you care to elaborate on this?
What difference does this make financially compared to just Sqns?
So if I run a successful Sqn, I can take on a couple of detached flights as well? I can feel the nervous breakdown building already 
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Wow exciting.
A sustainably sourced hemp badge for the cadets to wear no doubt.
Why are we worried about sustainability… jesus if they want to sort that, make it so I dont have to have electric heaters on full all winter 24/7 just so the pipes dont freeze!
Gets very cold here in winter and the building has square root of zero insulation.
Or stop us having to print so much stuff all the time. Forms after forms.
Or tell you what.
Just close the Corps down.
The savings and environmental benefit would be massive.
All hail project ASTRA.
give me a break!
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The idea of hub and spoke is to cut down duplication of all the paperwork, shared activities, shared staff coverage, shared kit. Imagine one squadron instead of four, but operating in different locations. The spokes will be mainly school based with infra spend and equipment effort going into hubs.
There is some concern that some inappropriate behaviours are being hidden in plain sight under the banner of the ‘uniform and drill police’. We could all name names in our wing if we are honest.
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Sure, but why / how would a hub & spoke approach stop that? If a WSC / sector SNCO / WWO doesn’t do anything at the moment, why would a lower ranking Sector Cdr with much more responsibility than they potentially had before, do anything to fix it?
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I can’t see hub and spoke being necessary. Behavioural changes should be all it need for units to ‘share equipment’ etc. In fact, is this not already practice?
Hubs and spokes are just the same as having individual units. You will still need staff to run that spoke.
I don’t think the idea of squadron mergers is necessarily a bad one, as I’ve said on here before, I’d rather merge if the cadets got a better experience out of it. It’s staggering the difference between some squadrons that may only be a couple of miles apart.
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I agree, the benefits of hub and spoke sound like a well run sector. The disadvantages sound like 1 volunteer OC running 4 Sqns/DFs. The role of OC is hugely unattractive already. This idea doesn’t improve that.
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Yep, I was once at one unit, where there were at least 3 other units within a 15 min drive, and 2 of them were basically unviable
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This was the point of Sectors and placing the Sector Commander into the chain of Command (opposed to the old style WSO who wasn’t). One of the issues with making it run as they would like is that it requires wholesale changes to the CWC stream and the funding that they provide, which is much harder to make happen than changes to the Uniform side.
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I’m pleased to hear this. The rest of the world has had to change, adapt and develop in the last 12 months, why should we be immune.
Granted, hub and spoke units is going to need some work, and will probably need a few iterations and certainly time to get right for all, but should make the Cadet experience better.
Don’t like the sound of the dark alley Gliding is staring down, but let’s hope there is some light at the end.
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I can’t really see how “hub and spoke” Sqn and Flights are going to be any different to the existing format of Sector and Sqns. All that’s different are the names.
No matter how it looks on paper, it is still going to require staff on each of the units working to keep their house in order, and one commander working to ensure that not only is their own house in order but that the Flight Commanders are doing their jobs too.
Most of us already share events and staff for events. How much duplicate paperwork is there which will be removed by renaming “Sqns” to “Flts”?
They’ll still need the same RAs as they currently do… They’ll still need to put together an SMS events for off unit activities…
Shared kit? Between units who are geographically separate? That’s not going to improve the average parade night any more than units loaning kit to each other as they do now.
I’m sorry… I just cant see it.
How on earth is wearing MTP more regularly going to “solve” some “inappropriate behaviour”?
If there are bullies out there on a power trip the solution is administrative/disciplinary action.
I’ve known a couple… in 26 years.
Using words like “growing concern”, “culture”, and “ethos” carries a heavy implication that this is a widespread, deeply rooted problem and that people are turning a blind eye to unacceptable behaviour.
Frankly, that doesn’t tie in with my own experiences and I’ll go out on a limb and say that I suspect it doesn’t tie in with a lot of other people’s either.
I reckon that someone has either found a small, nasty, exception to the norm or they’ve chosen their words very poorly indeed.
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