Which is entirely appropriate and more aligned to charity law.
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Which is interesting considering the last few years of uniforms exerting influence on the charity arm.
If the reason is to not provide publicly funded licenses, that seems reasonable, but if the needed solution is to “self” fund, is that not subsequently undermined by the necessary use of and access to MOD servers and data systems?
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how is sending an email using your own personal email address in breach of GDPR and breaking the law?
the only “data” being shared is your own, by your own discretion given you are the one hitting send to your chosen recipient(s)…am i missing something here?
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It’s not. It may well be a breach of the RAFAC data protection policy to use a personal email address to send other people’s data, but as long as the data is kept secured then it’s fine as far as the law is concerned.
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that is what I thought - thanks 
Removing treasurer role accounts would cause operational and financial challenges for many squadrons. Treasurer role accounts are used by treasurers for things like:
- Accessing online banking.
- Managing online supplier accounts - e.g broadband, fuel cards, vehicle insurance, etc.
- Operating Gov Payments Service accounts (this requires a gov email).
- Access to HMRC gift aid portal
- Treasurer emails to parents about subscriptions. These are more credible - and effective - when sent from official email domains.
A role account also allows for continuity of access to services when the treasurer changes.
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@Millook but are they🤷🏻♂️ they just revert to how they did it before.
The same for some Adj and Training accounts.
The use of these is still hit and miss. We get told to use the generic accounts for general correspondence for that reason.
I cant see this being a big issue. As many have said, people will revert to using personal emails.
Is this right, probably not.
Does it look more professional when asking for funds for the email to come from a RAFAC account, yes.
With the amount of emails that the civilian commitee send and receive, is this going to have a major impact, possibly not??
The civ com have been briefed about this since January."
Not ours 
The first we heard of it was after our wing exec meeting - of which we had 4 weeks notice with no idea of duration and no agenda - nobody was therefore able to attend
Similarly, no information has been disseminated on how to move information from the Bader email accounts to any other account. If you’re lucky enough to be very techie you can probably manage it, but if you’re not, then a lot of info will be lost to the ether
Also, how will we access Bader? just using the squadron generic account?
These role based mailboxes may contain sensitive information about individual cadets and activities. Creating a situation where the current civ com members of role based email accounts (as you say, often non-tech people) feel the need to migrate the contents of these mailboxes to personal mail accounts at any number of different mail hosts, just so that they can carry on performing their voluntary service to the ATC, is risky. Foolhardy even. From a data and child protection point of view it would be safer for the ATC to keep ATC related internal comms on the ATC’s own (0365 hosted) servers. One wonders what the ico.org.uk would make of it. 
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It also makes it very tricky when it comes to someone doing an FOI or SAR as there may be relevant information in private email inboxes not under RAFAC control.
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At a National Level… I suspect Ostrich syndrome
Why would anyone be doing an FOI on a Non Public Charity… is that even allowed within the law?
Where would that place the 863 squadron situation.
If the Thurston issue taught us anything, it’s that when some random Sqn CivCom Charity goes rogue and decides to do something utterly moronic, and takes all the subs paid by our cadets / parents with them, it turns out to be an absolute testicle-ache to do anything about it.
The idea of Unit committees being subsumed into a controlled, charity heirarchy makes absolute sense to me.
With a different volunteering hat on, I am one of a number of trustees of a local unit (of which I am effectively the OC) of a national charity. It works fine. We pay our subs, we raise funds, the money goes into our unit bank account. As far as the national charity is concerned, those funds are Restricted for the use of our unit.
Just as we may raise funds which are internally restricted for a specific project within our unit (and therefore cannot be spent on anything else), our unit funds can not be spent by HQ, as they are solely for the benefit of our unit.
When it comes to spending, we make a local decision and spend.
All I have to do is comply with the HQ regulations, file my cashbook with HQ at the end of the year for them to inspect and incorporate into the national accounts, and not be a crook.
I can’t help but think that all this fuss and fear about Wing committees suddenly deciding that Sqns aren’t allowed to spend their money anymore is probably a storm in a tea cup.
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Once again it comes down to poor Comms. Info has trickled out and the rumour mill has kicked in.
I think the overall changes seem like they will be a good thing, as long as they are implemented properly.
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What you describe would actuality be a good system, and would be perfectly acceptable within charity law I think. You have one main registered charity, with many sub-branches. Each branch has its own bank account etc. But it can all be centrally audited. In this case you make each CWC and sub-branch of the regional charities?
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Who pays for any auditing at Wing level, top slice off each Squadron or will it be Region/Corps funded? If a squadron raises very little will the burden of costing fall in the remainder or will that money that the squadron has be used despite the squadron having to for instance find subs or equipment for some underprivileged cadets?
Changing the structure of RAFAC
The Oct 22 FAQ letter from HQAC on the proposed changes to RAFAC charitable structure gives a legal reason why changes are necessary. In item 3, HQAC said: “the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has stated that there is no legal case for these organisations to continue as Excepted Charities. Excepted charities will have their status withdrawn by 31 March 2031, but this process will start on 31 March 2025.”
No source is provided for the assertion. The Charity Commission guidance on Excepted charities is found here Excepted charities - GOV.UK
Regarding the duration of exceptions, the Charity Commission says: “Most exceptions are permanent; only one – the exception for certain churches – has an end date (31 March 2031)”.
Squadron Welfare Funds are not churches, and so, if the government’s website is correct, Squadron Welfare Funds are not faced with an impending withdrawal of their excepted charity status.
Has anyone seen evidence that the statement attributed to DCMS in the HQAC FAQ document is both accurate and applicable to [edit to remove: armed forces charities] [change to] RAFAC sqn welfare funds?