Anyone in Greater Manchester Wing seen these new promotion criteria
Interesting, in our wing the o ly bronze leadership courses are taught as part of the JNCO course, which you can o ly get onto if youâre already a CPL.
More micro management by GMW
Policy is set by HQAC not wings.
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Thereâs nothing I love more than made up requirements. I hope their sector commanders and wing training teams can handle it.
Thereâs some good stuff in the text though.
Itâs interesting how much it varies. We stopped covering leadership on NCO courses once the PTS was introduced as it became repetitive (blue is a pre-requisite for the JNCO course instead).
From my understanding of Bronze, Iâm surprised theyâre able to fit it into the course, it must be structured very differently to ours.
Edit: for ours you also donât have to be at the rank to attend the course (i.e. Cpl for JNCO, Sgt for SNCO), if anything itâs preferred if youâre not.
I get the principle behind it but for the PTS element it doesnât allow flexibility of individual circumstances. Whether thatâs disabilities, young carers, people who work, poverty -all of which can impact the ability to get away and do those courses.
Interesting on the time front one - as we all do at the moment is set our own requirements on Sqns. Ours is the must be a minimum of 12 months in the rank below. So 3 months in previous rank on average is only 48 hours on parades nights to have got your feet under the table and settle into the rank before potentially applying for the next rank.
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Looks like CWO is being severely gatekeeped!
When you review it collectively they will haveâŚ
- 22 Months of Service
- Master Air Cadet
- Silver Leadership (Eligibility of 24 Months Service, plus 6 months after Bronze)
- Completed JNCO Course
- Completed SNCO Course
- Completed PS + MOI
- 4 x Silver/Gold PTS
- Leadership role on a Parade / Ceremonial Event
- Flight Commander on Camp
Not in GMW but my wing has 66 Cadets with Silver Leadership.
Is the wing delivery in place to put these measures in place?
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I dont disagree with the concept. I would bin of sector cdrs being involved.
CWO is untennable with the flight cdr aspect, especially as avaliability of the camps decline.
My question is, whats wrong with the HQAC guidance. If its not fit for purpose challenge for change, rather than make local policy up
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It should be a pretty easy challenge as RC North is quite against local policy being created
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Nothing wrong with the HQ guidance although I have heard moans from a dep OC wing (not in my region) that HQ allow Sqn OCs too much freedom!
Other question - is this actually enforceable?
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Nope.
I be asking the sector commander and OCW to come and demote my cadets, money on they wouldnt. Then id show the parents HQAC policy and call out the differences then point them towards OCW
What needs to happen is a policy is agreed and then Bader/Units/SMS/whatever its called is configured to not able promotions from a record perspective untill all the boxes are ticked
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the biggest issue i have with this requirement, and indeed any such matrix, is the opportunities to tick these boxes need to be made readily available.
the promotions we consider at any one time will likely consider 2-3 Cadets moving to Cpl, and 1-2 Cpls to Sgt, and Sgt to FS. this can happen once or twice a year as the numbers fluctuate and dynamic changes.
we would be looking for 2 if not 3 JNCO places minimum, likely 5-6 places on a Bronze Leadership course.
and that quantity of allocation simply isnât happening now - by applying this requirement will see the other ~25 Squadrons all vying for the same limited places, increasing competition for a place and further reducing the opportunity.
it doesnât matter if it is CFAV or Cadet requirements, for promotion or something else - those setting these ârulesâ need to understand that we are all volunteers and doing this in our spare time - and so are those who are making the opportunities available to us.
unlike the RAF which has a schedule set for courses which run throughout the year, and are attended by the candidates during their work time, the same approach cannot be applied to the volunteer environment of the RAFAC.
Courses are run as an when CFAV course leaders have the availability, and on a frequency they have a willingness and interest to provide given it is their spare time (weekends) that is required.
it also requires the Cadets to be available in their spare time also - school work, paid employment. family commitments or other hobbies all pulling at their limited time requiring the course availability to all line up with the Cadetâs availability also - not impossible, plenty of courses take place each month across the Corps - but be it leadership, first aid, radio/cyber, shooting or whatever there are rarely the number of courses which met the demand within the Wing, or held at a frequency which suggests the next course is only a month or two away.
as such I have no clue what value â3 months in rankâ offers as a requirement, as the other elements could take 6 months to line up on their own - but would happily shake the hand of any cadet who managed to complete 3x courses in three months for Sgt and two silver PTS opportunities (and pass) for FS
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Itâs effectively a pyramid numbers game, but without the number of cses / support staff / type of events to allow the stated parameters to be achieved fairly across the board.
I hope they get called out on this micro-management.
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Absolutely not. That is overreach and completely disempowering to people making decisions. There are loads of reasons why these criteria come around every so often and get knocked back, and they almost always are because of poorly thought out control issues i.e. someone higher up thinking they have to exert control over every little detail of life. Itâs sad really.
A better idea would be to improve training for staff, give them support for suggested guidelines they can tailor to their own environment and then improve standards by osmosis. You wonât improve standards by just making it hard on SMS, people will just promote them anyway and not do it on SMS.
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This is too far imo.
ACP 20 explicitly says itâs up to OCs to decide how and when to promote their cadets, up to FS. It gives some guidelines:
This policy from GMW is attempting to override that. Itâs local policy, going against national policy. If OC Wings are allowed to override ACP 20, can they ignore other stuff too? At what rank/role are you allowed to start taking HQ policy and ignoring it?
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I think the promotion criteria/process needs to have built in flexibility (as the Corps policy does). Different squadrons have different needs and so do different cadets.
If this restrictive set of criteria are enforced, I can see squadrons just being without NCOs for a significant period if theyâre smaller units or if they lose a cohort.
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Absolutely. A recommendation from a WHQ on promotion criteria is entirely acceptable. However restricting promotion to a defnite criteria which goes against ACP20 is not acceptable.
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Also as an SME I am not comfortable about tying promotions in to the PTS. It risks candidates attending because they âneedâ the course for promotion. And it squeezes out those who have a genuine interest in the subject.
We already see this with staff: get a Qual, complete the Matrix, never seen again.
I would favour a proper promotion course but ideally one that a Squadron or a handful of Squadrons could deliver from a centralised course folder. Not another elite course with two or three places per wing.
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I think what Alex is suggesting is that if any pre-requisites are to exist within HQ policy (not made up Wing stuff), this should be enforced through a technical solution, otherwise why have a policy at all!
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