Well yes really, change in resources of having to do more with less has been society wide for bout twenty years now.
DofE locally has fallen off a cliff, the AT opportunities are a lot less. The reduction in volunteers, These are non-public funded activites.
There is no obligation on the RAF to support the ATC.
A lot of regulations & bureaucracy has come in due complaints, accidents, one or two fatalities,
the biggest change was after the Kaylee McIntosh incident
This is what really started to shift the mindset & got the cadet forces looked at & it’s need to professionalise rather than some of the slap dash it has been in places.
Why it is the unwilling to change the makes it the AtC fault is because they have tried to keep doing the same thing in the same way rather than changing with the times.
Where this is the biggest issue is at wing & region level where the delivery expectation is the same but it’s no longer practical.
For example we haven’t had a wing greens camp for five years because the site has been reutilised by the home office. Rather than looking at other options there is an obsession on going back to that particular training area. There are other training areas & different times of years to do it but they want to do deliver the cadet experience which is what they did as a cadet - not try something new.
there is no innovation or willingness to change which mean that the HQ & wider RAF don’t get the right data leading to a lot of the friction.
The other cadet forces have been changing & adapting, likewise with a reduction in funding. So why are they succeeding where we are not?
Because they’ve adapted & innovated & changed a bit with the times - air cadet world has stagnated.
But remember this is only a volunteer role - if you think as an organisation we should no longer exist then just leave - it’s only volunteering & there’s no obligation for you to stay 