Were they not planning to put things like diversity questions on the 3822a? Not sure how relevant that would be under techie reasons for capturing date, the same goes for gathering the details of what schools all our cadets go to as we do now.
They’ve added mandatory fields for religion and ethnicity onto SMS but hadn’t updated the 3822A to capture the info in the first place. Hopefully they will remove the fields from SMS now.
I wonder if there is a review being held into the data we actually capture. Do they need to know my day job, for example?
I think that religion could be seen as necessary to ensure that we’re inclusive and meeting the needs of our clients. I have very few non-christian/atheist cadets so having something highlight a religion I don’t encounter much and the associated needs would be useful to me. Obviously we could get that other ways but a simple form seems to make sense.
You could capture a specific requirement for individuals who have one if is is likely to come into play for general activities, bearing in mind that you would still capture key information on TG21/22 for camps where timely parental consent may be an issue.
I can’t think of anything that needs to be entered onto SMS.
Unfortunately this is why we have lawyers.
We can argue about it here but unless we’re all legally qualified then we don’t know the potential ramifications later on!
I have zero confidence in these apparent lawyers, the ability of HQ to engage somebody competent for any legal advice or to even hold an holistic view if the issue.
I don’t either (or any lawyers really) but my point was more that they SHOULD have a view on why the RAFAC collects the data that it does - even if the reasons aren’t apparent to us.
And as an individual whose data they are collecting, I would want to see a justification for each bit of information.
Wherever possible I refuse to disclose information about my age, gender, ethnicity etc. on the basis that it should be totally irrelevant for most purposes. The route to true equality lies in not caring about our differences.
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“Diversity” is a stats thing. I bet if they did an analysis of the cadet and staff population it would be white and either identifying as Christian or Atheist and probably ‘middle class’.
I know that the cadets and staff on my squadron do not match the local schools’ population.
Make a Subject Access Request under GDPR to see what they hold, and why.
Not convinced that you’ll be right with London at least (plus loads of other ethnically diverse places such as Bradford, Leeds, Manchester - any metropolitan really - and quite a lot of towns too).
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I was talking Corps wide.
If you start citing large cities, then by default you will get cadets from different backgrounds.
I have to agree.
On our unit we have three “non-white” Cadets, and a handful of religions which don’t fall under “Christian/Athestist” – a typical pattern across the whole of our Wing on average.
Filter the population to Staff however – I can only think of three Staff who could be classed as “non-white” > there maybe CIs lurking in units who aren’t seen on Wing events but the Staff population is certainly “white”.
If you look at the larger camps that trend continues further
This camp photo from RIAT16 shows it well…
Only one non-white face in the staff lineups (front row and right at the back)
My unit however is different on both aspects as is the other local unit to me.
Maybe we need to log diversity to show that we’re not an organisation just for white british and we encompass all (and can prove this with stats)?
I know about damned statistic and lies so don’t start quoting that one with me!
Well yes, but given that about 18 million people live in our 8 biggest cities, that’s a sizeable chunk of the population and - by extension - a sizeable chunk of the corps.
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It’s not the Data Protection Act 2018. It’s currently the Data Protection Bill. Not act until Parliament passes it and QE2 gives her assent.
By extension is little more than conjecture.
It would be interesting to hard numbers on the “cultural”, “religious” and “sexual” diversity of the ATC and then drill down to see if it matches.
I bet that still the majority would be male, white, heterosexual from better off families, which is the most frowned upon group in British society.
it would be interesting to know how the RAFAC diversity sits against that of the RAF…
I think that organisations only need the minimum and in certain circles that will include a criminal records clearance to work with vulnerable groups.
When you look at what we put on SMS, I think we have too much that is open to, too many people. I’ve removed a lot of things and only left the absolute basic information. No one has moaned at me and will be advised if they do.
I can see this reducing he number of required fields.
When you do an event that’s away from home there is a consent form, which should be a temporary extension of non-essential information purely for that event and shredded on completion.
are you mad?!?!?!
they need to be kept until the Cadet reaches 25 years of age…(or so we are told)!