Come have your say in an ‘all CFAVs’ consultation:
posted in RAFAC Military Skills Hub / General at Aug 26, 20:50
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Hopefully this consultation is offered by other activity types, and results in a future version of the SAM that makes more sense and is easy to understand by both volunteers and perm staff.
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I have filled in the consultation - but as a sqn shooting bod, I’m biased - shooting should be seen as a core activity & any / all elements link together (IWT / LFMT / staff development / whatever) into a whole package. As such, I think VA (& travel expenses) should be a “must” for all such activities.
For any future skills consultation, I would expect that all the SMEs would want the same for “their” train set.
I think this is how it will be. If the choice was up to us, then VA and expenses would be available for all activities.
@dazizian I wonder if a slight rejig might lead to some better data? Instead of each activity, followed by the various options, it might be better to allow some sort of prioritised ranking instead. So from the likes of Mike you’ll see what is actually most important?
I’m not a shooty person, but even to me the vast majority of those categories, if not all, should be at a minimum a ‘should’ category. An 8-hour day is an 8-hour day. If you’re doing it for the benefit of cadets, it should have VA. But sadly, we’re past that, so a priority list of some sort may be better.
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Deviating from the topic slightly 
Why? Our allocation of days has remain unchanged at 28 days, I’d be interested to know the average days claimed at at a national/regional level both per active uniformed volunteer within the financial year and also then excluding those who made 0 claims.
We reduced costs with the introduction of acting (rare) v substantive paid ranks, again it would be interesting to see how many Flt Lt + have claimed days at substantive rate, given it’s only those affected by this change.
What the SAM does try to do is focus volunteer effort towards some activities and away from others, how effective that is I don’t know.
I used to get VA for Activity X, now I don’t so I do less of that, but I never liked Activity Y so I’m not replacing my time with that, and actually overall output reduces.
Perhaps we should reframe the Must/Should/Could as being should cadets get the opportunity to complete this rather than does it get VA.
I just think if you have a 28 day allocation then any 8 hours day should count, up to 28 days 
I suppose my wording there implies I think the 28-day rule is bad, but that wasn’t what I meant 
I do agree with moving to a role based system for working out the rate. And mil skills would work as a good example. The AIC or person organising claiming at Sqn Ldr pay, then maybe the RCOs as Flt Lt pay etc etc (Made up numbers, you get the idea!)
This whole acting vs substantive breaks down when a Sgt is the one organising yet is still going to be claiming less than a Fg Off just attending…
I do also think the other option is if we’re going to cut the numbers hard, we move to a system where you claim VA for training days only. Attending your RCO course? VA. Running a range? No VA. We are volunteers, so it sort of makes sense to ‘pay’ people to get qualified, but then the actual volunteering bit being free. I’d argue this more closely aligns with the wording in JSP 814, too.
I don’t understand why the 28 day limit is not just reduced, leaving the volunteer to choose how they spread that allowance, as opposed to prioritising certain activities which will only lead to some activities not going ahead. This would reach the same goal of reducing cost but not just single out Flt Lt and above, and would place the choice with the CFAV.
Because then, HQ wouldn’t have control over what we can claim for, benefiting some and cutting out others.
Though related, it’s getting a bit thin as you veer more towards the VA debate, which can be (and has been) discussed elsewhere.
Being it back to the consultation.
I think the reason they don’t reduce the 28 day limit (and why some kind of prioritisation, and hence this consultation, are important 
) is because most CFAVs don’t get anywhere near that in a year so it wouldn’t actually reduce costs by that much.
That wouldn’t give the right data. I’ll explain with an example but I can’t do that whilst the consultation is open for fear of biasing! I’ll come back to this once the consultation has ended.
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That’s fair.
It would be interesting though if people had to pick their top 5 things that would attract VA, then their next 5 etc. Then see which activities are most picked in people’s top 5! Maybe not super useful data, though.
you say this…
it would be interesting to look at historic data to find out what events CFAVs claimed for.
Camps I am sure would be up there, as a easy block of 6-7 days to claim.
but after then it depends on the SME bias I would have thought…
are there more “shooters” than “first aiders” to be claiming on their weekend outings
are there more “radioers” than “ATers” etc
likely impossible to work it out given the paper based system that has been used to date to simply pull out the information to say
in the FY 23-24
5000 days were claimed
X% were for Camps
Y% for CFAV training
Z% for Shooting
A% for AT
etc
I’d be more interested in the data in what CFAV thing should be prioritised from within each SM though.
So from a mill skills perspective, would you prioritise VA for attending RCO/SAAI courses? Or would you prioritise VA for actually running range days? Or what about CPD days? Or even for pre-event planning? Or prioritise for those delivering TTT courses?
Likewise with AT; Would staff prioritise VA for attending training and assessments courses, or should the VA be prioritised for those running a day session to the cadets. Or as above, should it be prioritised for CPD days etc?
I think it would be interesting to see what people prioritise.
Maybe the cadets should be consulted at a top level to see what activities they think are a priority, and then that can feed into the consultation on what areas could be prioritised for VA.
i don’t disagree…
My point being i wonder if there has already been some prioritisation given where the claims are coming in?
it would be most useful to know on an individual basis, but would be interesting to see if someone preferred to claim 28 AT days while also attending a week long camp but didn’t claim.
or someone who was a shooter and AT if there was a split which events they claimed?
of course given few use all of the 28 allocation, it may not be all that useful as self prioritisation would only be necessary if attending more events than can be claimed for
edit to add: i claimed every event I attended that was eligible, and only twice ever hit the limit.
this was mainly shooting and camps, but throw in a couple of AT days and radio training days in there too - i never needed to consider which event to claim over another - the rate was always the same and rarely ran out
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