As an ex sqn commander of 2 units I was constantly bombarded by phone calls whether it be from parents, civ com, staff or wing. It was getting ridiculous. I work in a job that doesn’t allow me easy access to my phone unless on a break and I remember one day I turned my phone on and there were 20 answer machine messages. Most of which were from wing about trivial things.
Now I have moved on and am an adjutant at an AEF I still hold the rank of Flt Lt as I’m time served but still do AEF work when on my days off or at home and only get paid £57.50 after tax for doing so.
Personally I thing the 28 days pay for each individual should be scrapped. I know for a fact that many don’t use their 28 days and some do more but don’t get paid for it. Personally I’ll probably use up my 28 by the end of August which means I’ll be working the rest of the time for free (except mileage). It should be on a case that you can apply for an extension up to a max of 50 days. I know they have this for AEF pilots.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that a time served Flt lt that isn’t in a position of responsibility should automatically be given the full rate of pay however, if you are such as OC or adjutant, then they should get the full rate. If you want the higher rate then you should be willing to take up a position of responsibility.
Bit of a can of worms opened here but HQAC won’t listen whatever and will do what they think is best without gathering opinions.
And the other reason why this is poldarks, is that no matter what qualifications the IC of the activity has, if there is a more senior (officer) there then their danglies will fall on the line just as much as the Sgt ATC runnnig it.
Responsibility and authority do not just fall to whowever’s name is on the chit.
Then that is down to whoever is running the activity as well as those who sign it off. There should be no passengers on [I]any[/I] activity. There certainly isn’t on mine, anyway because if you turn up, then expect to work.[/quote]
Lord knows where you are but it would be nice to have that many staff on an activity that you have the spare who can / will just sit around all day long.
I think it also overlooks those who are being taxi drivers and giving up their time so that cadets get the opportunities. Most that do this will get involved if only in a supervisory role while others are able to do what they need to. Any activity we do requires staff and the vast majority especially sports and public events don’t for whatever reason attract pay, despite the fact you can be working harder on one of those, despite not needing any qualifications per se. I know a number of staff who won’t do things that don’t attract pay, especially the inter-sqn sports events. If anything I think you should have to do a broad spectrum of things and not just cherry pick and while there is the hypothetical getting paid extra, why not look at what other things people do and award extra payments to those who don’t just do their favourite things. Looking at it I do far more non-payment attracting activities because as the OC I see it as my responsibility and to that end there aren’t enough days in the year for me to use my PTD, if I want a family life and not just be a slave to the ATC.
i agree there should be a balance, while at the same time appreciate for “staff development” progress down a chosen route (AT, shooting, Drill, etc) and permit the collection of qualifications and/or experience with Wing team is also valid.
there is a offset between “pay” and “effort”
there will be Sgts who are bound to be Sgts for the rest of their service as they only stick to Sqn events, and dont tick any of the promotion matrix boxes. that Sqt may also be a Adj and argubly the hardest working (most hours) Staff on Sqn.
they don’t claim pay as they don’t attend the right events
on the flip side a Sqn Flt Lt who can only attend once a week and is not expected to attend weekend events due to family/life commitments by his Sqn yet only makes the effort to attend events which claims pay
one puts in 12 hours a week claims <4 days a year
the other scrapes through 12hours a month yet claims 28 days + a year
this is perhaps an extreme end of the scale but i would be happy to say we all know at least one of those examples or someone close to it.
arguably both permit the same, opportunities for Cadets, and in some way do their bit to facilitate Cadets getting on events.
unfortunately there isn’t a suitable structure to correct this as we’re all volunteers.
in an ideal world each Sqn would have the same Staff layout with the same roles and qualifications and so the effort by one Sqn SNCO would be equal to another having similar/equal roles and thus justifies equal pay.
in reality this is not the case, on our Sqn for instance we have double figures of Staff on one night, yet barely 5 on another…in one unit the effort is not equal on a weekly cycle so difficult to find a system which will work for 960+ units
The current system works just fine. If staff want to increase their pay levels, then they need to make a conscious effort to move on up via whatever the promotion criteria is at the moment (although I admit it is far from ideal).
If an RAF Corporal wants to earn what a Wg Cdr is earning, then he knows what he has to do…
The simplest thing may just be do do away with this “acting, paid” malarkey and just pay everybody at their substantive rate. I imagine that will save a few bob.
A Fg Off on a squadron already gets paid exactly the same as OC Wing swanning around in their HQ: Precisely feck all!
That seems to be a chip on your shoulder, not mine. I was careful to compare officers with officers and SNCOs with SNCOs in my lengthy, earlier response.
I do have something against people of any rank who are just in it for the money and I do truly think that sometimes they take the mickey. I’ve seen an OC Wing visit a cadet camp for 3 days to languish in the bar, barely see the camp staff or cadets during the visit and rake in around £450 for the privilege. That is not cricket.
If we accept that officers deserve more money purely because of the fact that it is all their fault (to the military mind anyway- surely better to accept a rank-free concept of responsibility) then have an officer rate and an NCO rate. If the current Sgt rate were use was adopted as this non-commissioned rate then I’d not bat an eyelid despite the drop in VA I’d get. It is still nice to be able to get something back for this hobby of mine to help offset the vast amount of my personal money and time which I choose to put into this organisation.
Might your vehement opposition to the suggestion of a fairer system of VA for everybody perhaps be down to you having more to lose if we switch from a purely rank-based system?
Why does it stick in your gullet just because we have a rank-based payment system? So does industry. A manual worker earns considerably less than someone who manages a whole department. Do you think that is unfair or would you suggest that they should earn the same rate of pay? That would really incentivise people to get on, wouldn’t it?
No chip here. Maybe there’s a deep-fried mars bar floating around on yours?
Now that, I agree with but I daresay that there are some SNCO(ATC) in this Corps who do exactly the same.
There you go - YOU put time and personal money into your hobby and the pay - sorry, allowance - helps offset it. The same applies to the vast majority of staff. Like it or not, this is a military-sponsored youth organisation that follows a military structure and that includes this new-fangled volunteer allowance which is rank-based and reflects the levels of responsibility that the individual has chosen to accept. If you don’t like the disparity, then why don’t you get yourself commissioned?
Yes, I would have more to lose but that’s not the reason I’m opposed to socialistic nonsense such as what you’re proposing. In my role within my business, I stand to lose £hundreds per day for every day I attend a camp or course with the ACO and I regard the Flt Lt daily allowance as a small recompense for that loss of income. What is so wrong with that?
HQAC can call the Money the give us in exchange for a day of our lives anything they want. It is what the Inland Revenue consider it is is the important issue.
Tbh, I can see both sides of the Incy/Gunner argument.
One the one hand, Incy makes a valid point - the roles that we play on the activities that we do have very little to do with our rank, which is primarily based on the stuff that we don’t get paid for. It makes sense that pay is based on what we’re actually doing - a Fg Off running a camp is doing precisely the same job as a Sqn Ldr doing the same job, why wouldn’t they be paid the same?
On the other hand though, there is a sense that the extra pay is a sort of indirect compensation for the **** that one has to put up with when in charge (of the activities that they’re not getting paid for) - so a Flt Lt OC acting as camp comm gets paid more than the Fg Off not because they’re doing a different job on camp, but because they do a different job off camp.
MattB, I like the way you’ve displayed both arguments and when worded like that you can clearly see the trade-off involved and it justifies why the rank pay system is set like it is. We aren’t always doing the exact same amount of work but that’s because we’re 300 hobbies in one and every weekend is a different activity requiring different levels of instruction and/or supervision. Overall, higher ranks do have more responsibility though and should be remunerated as such.
My mind set is that I treat my off-Sqn activities as my hobby. The Sqn OC role is volunteering (although it is more work than my actual job sometimes). Having said that I attend my off-Sqn activities as a Flt Lt and I expect to put in the respective level of work/responsibility of a Flt Lt. Sometimes it is in a supporting role, sometimes it is in a command role, but even when I’m in a supporting role I would still aim to act in a manner with more professionalism from experience than a less experienced member of staff would. I’m not saying there aren’t issues though…
Issue No. 1, is that activity qualifications are not evenly distributed or differentiated for SNCOs/Officers other than Drill (no idea why, I know and can do drill better than a lot of SNCOs in our wing). That said, it would be great to know that if a CFAV from another Sqn joined me on a camp that I’d know exactly what they were capable of running/organising. We can blame this on change in policy/law, lack of local courses/venues, and lack of staff with instructional/assessment qualifications because of the previous two reasons.
Issue No. 2, if you (not aimed at MattB, but anyone) have staff who you feel are not performing at their current rank then either you need to speak to them or you need to speak to their boss rather than do nothing about it. If uniformed staff aren’t putting in the required hours, then they can agree a temporary expected level of commitment, they can go NEP if longer-term or be reverted to a CI. Not many OCs challenge this issue though because they are afraid of confrontation.
As the remuneration is over and above travel and other expenses, HMRC will consider it taxable income. It may fly in the face of the spirit of volunteering, but unless the rules are changed your accountant won’t get anywhere.
That idea was looked at many years ago in the ACF and nothing came of it. I think a cost analysis showed no significant savings would be made.
What killed it off was the list of jobs that it was felt should attract an extra responsibility allowance. Guard, night guard, duty male and female, duty driver, first aider, RCO, Camp commandant, Detachment Commander.
Almost everyone who pitches up would be on some sort of enhanced daily rate! So savings unlikely and an additional administration burden too.
