Updated IBN for the use of SOVs. A banning in all but name.
Moved from “Civcoms are responsible for maintenance and OCs to implement”, to “RAFAC policy is they must have a mandatory safety inspection every 6 weeks, but still we don’t take any responsibility for them”.
I hope people are prepared for the increase in white fleet hire. This commandant, the “team” at HQAC at the RAF are an absolute joke with no interest in supporting a volunteer organisation. I’m livid.
While we don’t have any SOV, a simple response that I encourage every unit to adopt is any time the RAF asks for air cadet support, we refuse.
I don’t disagree with the checks on the whole, but mandating that they are checked every 6 weeks really is overkill in most situations, especially with newer buses, the amount of time they’re used and what the government guidelines are recommending being at odds with what HQAC are saying.
We have been lucky enough to be able to buy a brand new bus recently (it’s on order, and coming in the next few weeks). There’s no way I’m going to the expense of getting it checked every 6 weeks at a garage; I’ll do as many visual checks as I can to meet the criteria, but I’m not paying someone to do it for us.
There is someone at HQAC who looks after MT and really does seem to hate SOV’s. When I asked about the HQAC discount scheme for a new bus I was told it’s still open to applications, but we can’t buy through HQAC with the discount because they don’t think anyone has any need for a SOV.
I also have no problem doing the checks. What is galling is that they have changed their minds and said they need to be 6 weekly whilst simultaneously saying “we don’t accept any responsibility for their use”.
It looks like someone has applied the most stringent possible requirements without looking at it. I have a CFAV who does this sort of thing for a living and his boss is a licensed operator of PCVs. His advice was that the usage frequency and the type of work they are doing means it really isn’t necessary to go to 6 weekly checks, 12 weekly would be more than adequate with your daily walk around inspections.
But of course, there is a risk attached so HQAC want to try and remove it. The longer I’m in this organisation the more benefit I can see to the Sea Cadets model of working.
People say “oh what about the RAF subsidised activities and buildings and uniform”. To that I say we would still be better off without them. I could pay for flying and gliding myself, like the SCC can do. I could get my building repaired when I wanted, with appropriate quality fixes when I wanted. I could apply for funding for things I currently can’t, and I could get my cadets to and from events.
At the moment I can’t get cadets flying because it’s too risky, and even if I could I couldn’t get them their because driving them in a minibus is too risky.
There’s clearly an obsession at HQAC with ‘unsafe SOVs’ which isn’t my experience of SOVs over the last few years. There did used to be some tatty old LDVs around. In my recent experience, most SOVs are modern, well maintained and looked after. A 10 or 12 weekly check should be sufficient.
This IBN pretty much kills off SOVs, which I assume is the aim. Instead, we will have to rely on private vehicles owned by CFAVs and potentially cadets. That introduces more risks I’d suggest, which are more difficult to control.
So let me get this straight. We can’t use private aircraft because the RAFAC can’t trust the way the CAA already manages it. But they’ll trust and old OC/ Civ Com with managing the safety of private vehicles…
Our agreement with the Traffic Commissioner for teh issue of the Section 19 Permit was 12 weekly checks… and that’s what my MT orders say.
This overnight doubles the cost of running the bus!!!
This organisation under the current Commandant is dead, it might still be breathing but the total lack of understanding of what we need to run the organisation effectively at the front end as long as a total aversion to all risk are becoming a death by a thousand cuts.
Which sadly says a lot about their limited understanding of what happens on Sqns.
Exactly that. It is bonkers. It can only have come from a place of “not doing anything means I have no risk”. It is unjustifiable. It is absurd. It means that delivery of activity across the country will stop, or be done against their policy because you know as well as I do that no one has increased the transport budget to mitigate this.
All that happens now is that I will take 4 x private vehicles to 1 activity rather than 1 vehicle. That means potentially needing 3 more CFAVs claiming VA, 3 more vehicles claiming mileage.
All in the name of “safety”. People seem to not understand that if you do a lot of something, the natural risk of accidents goes up. We drive a lot, so there will be accidents. Some of these will have been avoidable. Therefore I get rid of all driving and we have no accidents.
bUt ThE TrAfFiC cOmMiSsIoNeR iSn’T aSsUrEd By ThE rAf 
I tried to explain this to them. The response was you can hire vehicles whenever you want, and there is no cost or budget limitation.
I replied saying that wings do block vehicles, and it’s really difficult to find someone to wait around all day to have them delivered, and go to an RAF station to do all the MT rubbish that you have to do to drive anything through the hiring scheme. I also mentioned that there are lots of activities where we can’t hire a vehicle through the contract, like sports.
Their response was that you should have the vehicle dropped off and picked up at your nearest RAF station… 
I gave up in the end and found someone who could give us the equivalent discount…
Good luck if you live in somewhere like Devon, nearest stations are Brize in Oxfordshire or St Mawgan in Cornwall!
Spoken by someone who has probably never had a job outside the RAF and doesn’t know how the real world works.
I miss the days of having a serving officer as a commandant, when they couldn’t achieve anything in 2 year postings by the time they moved on. No real damage ever came of them.
The past few have all contributed to ruining the organisation. Depriving it of it’s core function and purpose. We have lost shooting, flying, gliding, camps and numerous other activities under their respective watches, but it’s OK because someone can deliver a powerpoint course about space.
Lol.
I remember a couple of years ago LaSER all being told to massively cut down on transport as it was costing too much.
So I can still take cadets in my car, which only gets mechanically checked every 52 weeks? 
Yep. The logic is impeccable.
This, right here, is the fundamental problem.
That sounds like something that should be avoided under the environmental impact part of your sqn MT risk assessment. . . .
The SOVs will no longer be under the direct control of RAFAC
err…“no longer”?? When were they under the direct control?
The Civilian Committee will take on full responsibility for the maintenance of the SOV
err…will - future tense? What has been happening since year-dot?
thinking out loud:
CWC are charities and operate independently - right?
If as a Squadron OC I went to a Minibus operator, that was a local independent charity which supported the youth in its area by offering a 15 seater minibus, that is still permitted right, in much the same way I can still go to Hertz or Enterprise for Minibus hire?
If that local charity went under the name of 123 (Mytown) ATC and I hired the vehicle off them, perhaps at the very reasonable rate of £0.01/day that would still be within the rules right?
As that Charity will have insurance in place for the vehicle, will be conducting appropriate MOT, Servicing and mid-interval inspections (say every 12 weeks) in much the same was as the Capitalist Hertz or Enterprise I am now getting a SOV-like minibus at a much more competitive rate while at the same time supporting a local charity…
savvy?
As indeed there are community transport charities that are set up to do exactly that.
Maybe they could manage the SOCs for us