Handy to know we have this ladder which by-passes the CoC.
Can you share his email address or phone number, as I have a very very long list of things that could be sped up!
Heās on the email address book Grp Cpt Pass. Should be able to find it when logged in to your personal account
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for some it is a case of image an OCWg who remembers being an OC!!
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Which is part of the issue with demoting people who move role. The average Wing Commander candidate isnāt going to spend 8 years as a WSC to be demoted back to Flt Lt as a Squadron Commander (or Fg Off as a Squadron Officer). Instead they will stay on Wing Staff getting further and further from the local units I. Distance and experience.
CAC could be brave and engage a wider audience to the top table! Consider ongoing engagement sessions with Unit OCās, WSO, Civ Comm, CCF unit commanders etc etc.
Get feedback from the horses mouth, address the feedback where possible even if it was to say āsorry cant do thay because of A, B and Cā. Alternatively Andy Pass could consider this as part of his role??
I would happily get involved in this initiative, if improvements in the Cadet & CFAV experience could be made.
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Would be interesting to find out how the Cadet Council works with him. Supposedly there are senior cadets from around the organisation around the table. How many just let him talks over them!!
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Whilst I think itās something we desperately need, what would be the motivation from his perspective?
Whether we succeed or fail, he still gets paid.
Is this still a thing?
He could be really brave & get views from other cadet forces & the reserve forces & learn their lessons.
People in other cadet forces will have a similar experience but no agenda to push so would probably good learning on how we can tweak our operations.
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If you have cadets āinvolvedā in decision making youāre eligible to apply for a number of different funding grant opportunities.
Itās why the Wing CWO role was created.
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I totally agree there are no benefits to him unless he is keen to find solutions and is wiling to work with the CFAV community to improve the organisation.
But does it, as a CFAV he hasnāt command authority over reservists and regular personnel. Is having a CFAV adviser just a sop to the volunteer side of the RAFAC. Just look at the heat illness report, surely he would have had a copy, what did he say or do about it and in part the subsequent instructions?
Culture problem.
Contrast it with my little corner of the Scouts: moving up and down between being a group leader who does Tuesday nights, and doing District and County work according to taste and circumstance is just considered entirely normal - the current Beaver leader is a former District Scout Leader, the Cub leader is as well. Thereās a far greater āmucking inā culture than there is in the ACO - country staff will turn up to district/group events and do support/dogsbody/warm body tasks in a way that no WSO or OCW would.
This is the downside of the āyou canāt move meā thing - if an OC, or FS stays in place for 10 years, well guess what, so will the WSO and Wing Commander - itās called ossification.
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The Scouts havebthe advantage of having more units in smaller locations.
Where i grew up there was the main town which has 3-4 different troops plus one in each local village another 6 to choose from all within maximum 20 minutes drive of each other.
That same town has an ATC unit (where i went as a Cadet) and an ACF but their two closest units are all a minimum 20 minutes away in 2 directions, while the next two are 30 minutes away.
As a result of the proximity to each other the Scouts are far better at working with their neighbours and better at it too than the ATC have ever been in my experience
Moving to help out the neighbours troop isnt a slog not comes with many surprises as the leaders are known having worked with them before whereas Sqns are much more isolated with perhaps only the key staff being known and then then only by face and name
The removal of the RAFVR(T) and the ācivilianisingā of the Officer ranks within the Corps (sorry Air Cadets) is indicative of the separation of the Air Cadets from the parent service and the apathy that appears to be prevalent now. The disbandment of the RAFVR(T) was the direct result of too many officers using (quite rightly) the JSP complaints process due to bullying by other RAFVR(T) and RAFR officers (including HQAC). I know of one case where an officer was bullied (it impacted his staff, cadets, squadron and Civilian Committee also) by his WCO and Regional Commandant. After 7 years of him using the system to complain via HQAC, OC 22 Cmd, and then the RAF the WCO was found guilty of bullying, and the Rgnl Cmdt was found to have āa vindictive attitude incompatible with a volunteer organisationā!
What happened? Well the RAF decided that the Air Cadet organisation was a huge liability to the parent service especially as several high profile cases had highlighted serious HQAC failings and a culture of poor performance by command with a typical ālets drag things out so that after a while they get so pissed off that they just leaveā!
So the result was:
- WCO was disciplined by CAC (next time XXXX, donāt get caught) and moved up the food chain!
- Rgnl Cmdt, was promoted to a higher responsibility post and screwed up a bigger audience!
- The RAF disolved the RAFVR(T) and hence the officer ranks lost their JSP rights and hence can just be asked to leave the Corps as their service is no longer required with no recourse!
- I retired, with a very long thank you letter from the RAF, the Air Cadet organisation did nothing!
āEsprit de Corpsā was always a thing with the Air Training Corpsā¦ where did it go!
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I suspect that the CFC was pushed by HQAC of whom many are on FTRS contracts to cover up their failings and keep problems in house. Just look at the present debacle over the heat illness policy.
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It was but mainly because the service complaints cost Ā£40k each time to convene & some volunteers refused to accept when they were wrong. I was told one person who had use a blank firing pistol on a fieldcraft exercise & then lied about it, refused to accept the result claiming it affected his role as a police officer so it went all the way to the top racking up the costs at each stage.
All they needed to do was cap Service complaints at 2star & it would have been simpler.
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Is there any particular point where we should just all start singing abide with me?
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CFC was a tri-service change. In fact, it was a step towards a ārealā commission for SCC and CCFRN officers who were previously pure civilians.
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It was MOD led not HQAC and knowing the policy lawyers involved the catalyst was the ACF use of service complaints. VR(T) complaints barely registered in comparison.
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