What are the thoughts around the reported discrimination in RAF recruitment to exclude white males?
As someone from a demographic that has been traditionally underrepresented in many trades, especially aircrew and engineering, I remain a strong believer that it should be the best person for the job, regardless of their gender or ethnicity.
What as CFAVs do we say to white male cadets that have their hearts set on a career in the RAF - If this policy continues then through no fault of their own their aspirations will be dashed.
There have been so so many blunders recently. Blunders is polite. Itâs a sign of systemic issues, rather than 1 or 2 stand alone problems. Lets not forget this one too:
I have even more issue with the most recent âblunderâ as it wasnât that they were actively looking to recruit more BAME/female candidates, they were asking AFCOs to cancel all currently booked CBATs etc for non priority roles, unless that person was BAME/female. It was less of a âpause on recruiting white malesâ and more of a âcancel those that are already part way thereâ. If I was in that position Iâd be pretty outraged.
The SLT in the RAF need to up their game a bit here. So far this month weâve had: Leaked documents showing the absolute state of the pilot training pipeline. All the issues with the Red Arrows. Recruitment ordering white males to be kicked off, but allowing all others to carry on as normal. And finally information showing the RAF have been artificially inflating their recruitment stats to look more favourable. Women and ethnic minorities being given jobs where there is no training available yet.
Itâs not as if they donât, but at least we know the rot in senior RAF officers isnât just in the no marks we get sent our wayâŚ
But all this also means itâs far less likely that the RAF will be remotely bothered about âfixingâ the air cadets, given they canât run their own train set properly.
I think itâs a safe punt that CAS may be âencouraged to seek further employment elsewhereâ soon.
I donât think he realises the negative impact his wokeness has had on the those currently serving. All these revelations are going to make things worse.
According to the latest survey only 29% of people serving have faith in the appraisal and promotion system I wonder if that number will sink further now the RAF has been caught with its pants down with positive discrimination.
Recruiting from BAME groups is all well and good, ticks boxes and gets very senior officers the awards they so desperately crave, but there is one massive drawback.
As told to me by someone very well placed within âthe systemâ, there is an increased take up from the BAME groups, but an awful lot are subsequently failing their security clearance checks because of their family backgrounds and associations with red listed countries.
The recruiters then have to throw the net out again to repeat the process. Meanwhile, John Smith is sitting at home wondering why he/she canât get a look in!
Have you considered that attitudes and posts like yours are the reason the RAF needs to proactively try and recruit non white applicants?
Youâve essentially just equated every single person who is Black, Asian or from a minority ethnicity with being criminals or having a family history of criminality.
I am a little speechless actually, and find it hard to believe that someone in this century genuinely holds that belief. The only other option is youâre trolling, so which is it? Are you a racist or are you a troll?
What he said was that some are not progressing through the recruitment system until the applicant comes up against background checks, and then they have to be rejected on security grounds. Those security grounds trump all groups not just one.
Same things happen with the police, education and even the NHS when DBS checks comeback and concerns about their backgrounds are shown up.
No, they said the disadvantage of recruiting BAME candidates over people with âBritish sounding namesâ like John Smith is that a lot of their families have criminal histories. Whilst John Smith wouldnât have that because heâs presumably white and wonderful.
Clearly, anyone can have something come back on a security clearance regardless of ethnicity. That isnât the issue. The problem with @Turboâs post is they are saying it is more of a problem with BAME candidates and that John Smith wouldnât have that problem, the inference being that John Smith is white and that BAME candidates are all criminals.
So people called âJohn Smithâ have not been flagged up for their backgrounds. When I applied for the RAF in the 80s, my motherâs top manage as Director of Social Services had to give PSS a reference because of my Fatherâs activities in the 1950s. At that point my father had been dead for four years.
The thing @turbo flagged is that a lot of the applicants are second and third generation immigrants to the UK.
To be fair someone who is a second generation from an Afghan background is more likely to have family links to known terrorists than someone from a family thatâs been settled in England, Scotland or Wales (NI being a different situation) for hundreds of years and those families are more likely to be white. That could cause problems with a security check, though it isnât necessarily an auto bar.
Likewise proportionally black boys are more likely to have criminal convictions than white boys (Annual statistics: a youth justice system failing Black children - GOV.UK). Very few people will argue these days that itâs because black people are inherently naughty. We need to continue to resolve problems with economic inequality, social isolation, and conscious and unconscious bias at all levels of the justice system to change this.
What he was saying may have some truth, but it was put in a rather inelegant way. But this shouldnât be a barrier, rather than going down the positive discrimination route we should be looking at whether the current system is suitable.