New to this forum and would like to hear from any RAF Reservists who are assisting RAFAC as a Service Instructor (SI). By “RAF Reservists” I mean members of the Royal Auxilliary Air Force and RAF Reserve - whatever your Terms and Conditions of Service might be. Particularly keen to assist with any issues you may be facing with BADER and your Reservist-acquired Competencies.
Please note, I am not in a position to discuss non-RAF Reservists or those Reservists who have chosen to engage directly as a Cadet Force Adult Volunteer (CFAV). In the wider context, if you are a CFAV and want to discuss SI matters, I would be glad to hear from you too.
Would like to keep the engagement informal but not casual. If you feel so strongly you wish to make official representation, I can direct you how to do that on an individual basis.
For sure! My name is Dave, I’m in the Royal Auxilliary Air Force and, amongst other things, I advise the MOD on RAF Reserves stuff. The head of my area is a vice admiral called Phil Halley, but I’ve only met him once in the last 20 months and tend to do most of my work with my Army boss who is a colonel. I think the rest - including my Service Instructor interest - is covered in my profile.
I had completely missed the bio. Your post on it’s own without that context honestly looked like it could be media looking for a story! All good though. Sounds like you’re one of the good ones looking for actual opinions on the ground of how things are going.
I have no real feedback, other than I think it’s still a little silly that members of UAS/URNU/UOTC etc cannot join as SIs, instead joining as a CI or other CFAV. Seen recently a rather silly situation where two WOs were being escorted by a ‘CI’ who was a member of the URNU, therefore had an SC and MOD 90, as the 2 WOs had expired.
Allowing UAS/URNU/UOTCs to join as SIs might make things easier and encourage them to join to help! Especially as we are moving our CFAV age down to 18, so no issues now with that bit.
One of the arguments, IIRC, against being in UAS/OTC/URNU and serving as an SI was that it could end up with someone giving an ‘order’ to their peer group.
With staff now starting at 18 that argument has surely gone.
The ACF never had an issue with it and often use OCdts as DS on camps etc.
@Dacre1987 Welcome, it’s good to have someone on here offering to help with SI questions.
The UAS community isn’t something I know a great deal about beyond having spent time chatting to them in the Mess. Some education needed on my part as to their status.
It may seem odd for uniformed personnel outside of RAFAC to be allowed to become CIs in it. But, for Reservists, the option exists to be either a CFAV or, in Joint Service parlance, a Service Helper.
So, whilst there are certain restrictions on commissioned/enlisted rank combinations for CFAV uniformed service, being a CI should, in theory, be perfectly acceptable for Reservists. In contrast, Joint Service legislation does not allow Regular personnel to become CFAVs.
Interesting. I’ve moved on from the Sqn now and so has the Reservist SI but we were told she had to be a SI, there wasn’t another option. That was from the Wing HQ and to be honest, we didn’t question it and didn’t look up any policy but it’s certainly something to consider.
I’m now supernumerary at a Sqn and we have a Reservist SI, I’ll ask her if she was given the option. I’ll also ask her for feedback on your original question.
There’s a limitation on those holding a commission on one side can’t have a different status in the other: so an enlisted reservist can’t hold a CFC commission. Personally, I’d have thought a reservist’s status as SP would also preclude ‘civilian’ instructor status: but apparently not.
We’ve been wondering if there would be an update now we are on JPA, as you can’t hold two contracts on JPA. I would have thought that UAS and SI may not get the option of our side but would have to be SI’s.
Hmm so expanding this a little bit - the service instructor process should allow someone in the military/reserve forces to volunteer in another part.
So could the service instructor admin process be used to allow a uniformed CFAV from the sea cadets or ACF to volunteer with RAFAC as a supernumerary to that air cadet unit?
Build greater resilience across the cadet forces too.
Many thanks for the posts on this so far. This is my perspective of the policy situation.
The Joint Service policy reference for Reservists becoming either Service Helpers in their reservist rank or CFAVs is JSP 814 Part One paragraph 4.1.9. This paragraph also deals with the commissioned/enlisted rank restrictions.
ACP 20 Chapter 6 introduces the Service Instructor (SI) appointment for Reservists noting that SIs were known “previously as Service Helpers”. Chapter 6 also deals with the exclusion of “Cadet members of university cadet units” as SIs mentioned by @JoeBloggs .
The reference quoted as authority for SIs is AP1919 and, in the draft Version 7, this appears to be covered by Chapter 6 which, in turn, references RAF General Administrative Instruction (GAI) 1026. RAF GAI 1026 seems to have been issued 14 years ago but is still published on the RAF Intranet and references ACP 1 and ACP 4.
ACP 4 Standard 4 Annex B tells us that SIs belong to a category called “Staff” which does not seem to include CFAVs.
GAI is still the main requirement, we had an SI (reservist officer that was a SNCO before that) in the wing that was also a Sqn Cdr with no issues either with RAFAC or RAFAux…
@kitkat . That is good to hear. However, I did note that your original reply was couched in the past tense. So, without going into the specifics of the individual, could you give me a rough idea of how long ago it was?
