The following (rank-ranging) paid posts are established on Wings:
Wg Cdr – OC Wg
Sqn Ldr – Dep OC Wg
Sqn Ldr x 4 – Wg Staff Officers (WSOs) (Generic)
Sqn Ldr x 6 - Sector Commanders
Sqn Ldr - Wg Sports Officer
Sqn Ldr - Wg Shooting Officer
Sqn Ldr - Wg Trg Officer
Sqn Ldr - Wg Gliding Officer
Sqn Ldr - Wg Adv Trg Officer
Sqn Ldr - Wg MCO
Sqn Ldr - Wg H&S Officer
Sqn Ldr - Wg First Aid Trg Officer
Flt Lt – Wg Fieldcraft Officer
Flt Lt – Wg DofE Officer
And why is DofE and fieldcraft seen as not deserving as a Sqn Ldr post?
Is it me or does it seem like this is overkill?
a paid Sqn Ldr to get his kids to fix the website?
why do we need 6 x Sqn Ldrs to act as Sector Cdrs? do we need Sector Cdrs?
the mentality shows when the Fieldcraft and DofE portfolios are seen to merit a lower rank than H&S, gliding - when we’ve no gliders - first aid, thats provided by other bodies, and being the retard no one trusts with anything important and so shoves them in with the press!
It’s a farce…
What was it the navy had more admirals than ships??
Whilst we need to have a proper structure from top to bottom you cannot end up with more sqn ldrs than staff at sqns…
why sector commanders and wing staff officers??
What’s the WSOs going to do??
Deputy wing co and sector commanders yes to being a sqn Ldr post, the only one I would suggest being a sqn Ldr would be the MCO purely from the point of public interaction. What would get the medias attention more Flt Lt blogs or sqn Ldr blogs contacting them??
On the subject of DofE officers i bring to the boards attention the following
[quote]Opening Address
Wg Cdr Davis welcomed all delegates to this seventh Annual Conference, with the theme
“Focus on Expeditions”, and briefly outlined his role. He said that this would be his last
Conference, as the responsibility for DofE would be returned to SO1 Training - Wg Cdr Stuart McNeil - in the foreseeable future. He emphasised the importance of the DofE to the Corps, as it sat alongside most of the Corps’ activities. He noted that Wg Cdr Gerrish’s recent promotion reflected that importance.
[/quote]
If Sqn Ldr Gerish has been promoted to Wg Cmdr to highlight the importance of DofE in the Corps would it not follow that a Wg DofE Officer should also have “equal” importance across the board?
interesting to note of those 29 representatives attending from Wings 6 are Sqn Ldrs, 2 are NCOs and 1 a CI…the rest all Flt Lts
That ‘establishment’ has been in ACP 20 for a while and it’s surprising that we could even consider such a large number of Sqn Ldrs, I would suggest that it needs a caveat along the lines of ‘when all Sqn positions are filled, Wg staff COULD consist of up to the following’. I don’t see how any Wg can justify 19 Sqn Ldrs when Sqns are short of uniformed staff. The rank level is wrong as well. Why do the ‘specialists’ have to be Sqn Ldrs? Everyone at Wg Staff level acts with the authority of OC Wg so they don’t need the rank to work with the Sqns.
The Wg I’m in has 7 Sqn Ldrs and all of the specialists are Flt Lts, mostly co-opted. It works fine and always has done. When this establishment came out, I was discussing it with a colleague and I mentioned that it was probably an ideal situation; he told me that he knew of a Wg that had immediately promoted their staff to the levels and numbers shown, but he didn’t elaborate! Ridiculous!
Anyone else know of a Wg that actually has this level of staff?
Every other Wing role is being done by a person who is also on a Squadron be it an Officer, an SNCO or a CI. Or it’s a secondary duty for one of the Sector Commanders.
i suppose the point is that if this fantasy establishment/structure is so far from reality, why did someone who presumably had better and more important things to do even bother typing it up?
why did other people, presumably paid more and and with even better and more important things to do, sign it off?
why did not one of the Great Intellectual and Spiritual Leaders of Our Age think ‘Christ, what a load of rubbish, what sloped-faced halfwit thought this was a good use of time…’?
again, we go back to familiar arguments - fantasy establishments and drivel from Sleaford YMCA are fine when whole regions haven’t lost shooting, or Sqns of 45 will get less than half a dozen camp places this year, and thats without mentioning the elephant in the room. however, thats not where the ACO is - losing cadets, desperate for staff, no flying/gliding, RAF camps available to perhaps 15% of the current strength, shooting in a hole and now MT sections making up empires as they go along. yet somehow someone has the time/inclination to come out with this rubbish and worse, their superiors think its a good use of their time.
I don’t think anyone has read it as a target, but a framework to operate within. The only people who are getting bent out of shape are those who think they should be wearing a scraper bar but have been refused.
Do we actually need RHQ and HQAC?
Do we need a dedicated commandant and assorted others on salaries from £70-£90K+?
When Air Cadets first started it was all done locally by groups of squadrons operating as Wings and it worked then. In the 75th year, let’s get back to how the organisation was run 75 years ago, it couldn’t be worse than it has become.
The money saved by getting rid of RHQ and HQAC and staffs could see Wings staffed properly.
I’d go the other way, bin all the Wing Commanders and Wing Staff and do everything centrally. Have a group of qualified people to sign off PIPES etc, no more 30 odd ways of doing things!
agreed - the ACO does need an HQAC, if nothing else than to badger money and resourses out of the MOD - but Regions serve no constructive purpose, and we could survive quite happily without Wings as well. sector cooperation is most useful, but in reality for it to have any positive effect that is through personal relationships, similar outlooks and, err… cooperation.
we have a Sqn in our sector that has no interest in the things that the rest of the sector likes to do, while we have a Sqn 5 miles away that isn’t in the sector who shares our, and the rest of our sectors tastes/cababilities. not only do we not need a WSO/Sqn Ldr to organise cooperation between those who agree, we could live without this waste of skin getting in the way of actual cooperation that produces results.
Wings you need (for various boring admin reasons). Get rid of wings and you would need a super admin facility somewhere which would ultimately be vulnerable to MOD cost cutting. This way with a tiny amount of staff in disputable locations it’s almost impossible to cut them any further (clever tactic!).
Regions - would get rid of tomorrow save for some senior rank at volunteer post to represent the region (to make sure there isn’t that continual preference to certain areas of the country IYKWIM).