My understanding is they only need the standard DBS check which acts as a background check IAW the Charity Commission requirements and that it is an offence to apply for a higher DBS level then is actually required for the role.
Indeed the .GOV website states:
An organisation is breaking the law if they submit an application for a Standard, Enhanced, or Enhanced with Barred List(s) DBS check if the role you have applied for is not eligible for that level of check.
Does this mean schools are breaking the law when they apply for Enhanced with Barred List(s) checks for school governors, to undertake a similar role to CWC members?
No it’s a bit of a red herring. If you are an organisation dealing regularly face to face with children & on the same premises then you need to be checked & DBS.
Civ com will often interact with cadets so an enhanced check is needed. Likewise anyone working in a school & may come into contact with the pupils will need EDBS.
But what would be lawful is applying for a DBS that allows working with children & adults as that wouldn’t be proportional.
Likewise wing admin staff or those at HQAC don’t need DBS as they don’t come into contact.
Well, two of my staff have resigned this week to move over to the ACF and one to the SCC with his wife.
All three of those staff have tried to encourage me to go with them, but my loyalty still lies with my cadets for now, and i dont feel I can leave just yet. However, I can not blame the staff. They have been outstanding CFAV at squadron level and have supported wing well, but the joy is no longer there. These are 3 experienced unifomed staff.
We have also just had 7 cadets move to the ACF because they are currently going on camp monthly (at least) as a whole unit. The ATC is nowhere near able to compete with that. So again I cannot blame them.
My unit has had no flying and no gliding for over a year. 1 place on summer camp (we have 53 cadets who regularly attend) with wing.
The ATC model is failing. It is outdated.
What is being done to support staff and lower admin burden?!
Being told that things are moving online is great, but that just changes the burden.
I don’t want to be so negative, but I am in a real death spiral currently with my level of engagment…every time i build myself back up, wing, region or corps seem to always have a gut punch at the ready!
@Cab I know you can’t comment on specifics, but this is becoming a theme. Maybe you can please task the incoming Commandant to look at this. I get it will be difficult as HQ don’t process resignations, but I hear on here and speaking to people in person that the exodus to other cadet forces is growing exponentially
I heard that a recent objection to utilising civilian gliding provision is because they want to lean into the VGS and AEF model…
That would be great if the capacity was there, or due to be there imminently.
I guess thousands of air cadets will just have to be lucky to get airborne a single time in their cadet career because the HQ want to promote the internal model…
By all means, go all in on the internal model once it has capacity, but don’t neuter your USP out of pride…
On camps, here’s an idea: pay for a small team who run a single camp location year around, augmented by volunteers. Focus on volume so cadets feels like there’s something that’ll come up annually if they haven’t secured anything else.
You could even move location every year and loop back around every five.
Things may have changed, but when I was in the ACF the whole county / battalion went on the same camp (and it was for two weeks) rather than just a couple from each detachment.
That’s what they do here. It works really well for them here… as I said though, to the understandable detriment of my unit!
agreed, this is what our local ACF do, as a County they all “deploy” together. i don’t believe it is for a full two weeks but they do work together a lot more than the ATC.
Training weekends are completed as a County, getting everyone up to speed and all hearing the same script, rather than 20 different interpretations of the lesson
Let’s not forget the importance of the whole unit going away together on a residential. Not just two members of the squadron at most!
When I was a cadet we used to do weekend mini camps as a squadron. Often did it as part of a dining in night too! Worked very well.
Locally here the only time we would get all our cadets together for an overnight, and could regularly have an open invite to our neighbours was for a, you guessed it, car parking event for a local air show!
First they came after us trying to say it was AT as sleeping under canvass so need lowland leaders etc, then they banned the 12x12 for accommodation, now the whole activity is banned.
No fund raising, no squadron camp.
Death by a thousand cuts.
This. Spot on.
This doesn’t bode well for cadet GP shooting.
“The move will force soldiers to pretend they are firing weapons rather than using live ammunition.”
I think it will be less effect on live fire ranges & more on large deployed blank fire exercises.
It’s literally what we use to do as cadets in the late 90s & the TA as well where you had a blank firing exercise but 15 rounds for the entire weekend.
Knackers the fieldcraft a bit though - probably good that JL has phased out as well from that perspective.
I can’t wait to see the SAS soldiers training through the Downs screaming “bang, bang” “bang, bang, bang”
We could even have the Royal Artillery behind them shouting out Baldrick’s poem about the guns; “boom boom boom boom. Boom boom boom.”
I think the aircraft might need some loudspeakers though. No-one on the ground is going to head the pilot chanting “bang”
Thought that particular lot would be going “phft, phft, phft”
Pilot will be going “Dakka, dakka, dakka”
I guess 40 years ago the same could have been said for synthetic trg which is an addition to live training and, in some circumstances, better training than live. The increasing virtual : augmented capabilities available today can allow anyone to use a rifle without live ammunition and have a more immersive trg experience (but VR / AR is not a replacement for live).
I am excited by the possibilities here.
So long as they’re not going “Ahhh durka durka durka” we’ll be okay.
Nothing beats the smell of live firing but definitely to spend hours on a DCCT system is a lot more cost effective (and comfortable) getting people up to scratch and training before handling the real thing. Then it’s a simpler transition and shouldn’t require so much time on a range putting brass down if not 100% needed. Is obviously being used for pilot training, etc and again cheaper than using an aircraft cold or having a second seat just to train!