There is a squadron in Central and East that does not have any uniformed staff, and the OiC is a CI. I assume you don’t mean this squadron…
Nope. This one has 2 uniformed staff who haven’t been seen since April.
I wonder if there are any target on the ratio of uniform Vs non uniform?
From looking at various cadets statistics and FOI responses back of napkin calculation suggests 45/55 split and if everyone was active and paid VA, claiming their 28 days what impact would the additional cost of circa £10m in VA plus uniform costs etc have on delivery for cadets?
I’ve made that point before:
(yes, this same debate has been discussed at least once before this year…)
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Exactly why I gave it it’s own thread 
And exactly why I’ve given up commenting on this one. I agree that we disagree and it get’s boring going round in circles feeling like we’re all speaking to brick walls.
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I think there is definitely a role for CIs, especially for ‘specialists’. I am not including AT in that definition, I am thinking back to my time as a cadet where we had an aeromodeller who built and flew model aircraft helping us with diarama and models for field training day teaching us to airbrush and building flying models or the mechanic who was ex RAF that taught us engines and propulsion, he had a running engine on a rack he would set challenges on for us to troubleshoot.
If you want to get heavily involved in AT, shooting or being an adminer then 6 months probation and into uniform should surely be what’s laid out as the offering.
Every CCF Contingent Commander?
Some get paid for it. But nothing close to a Group Captain
The MOD tried that many years ago circa 1994.They removed all range quals from CIs .They sharp put them back when they figured out the cost of having uniformed staff do the same job.
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So if cost is going to be an issue, as previously suggested in this thread and others, is the issue about uniformed staffing levels more local than organisation wide or is it a concern from HQAC.
HQAC in my experience couldnt run a bath. As to cost .Cost is everything in the MOD always has been. Daft thing is they ve cornered the market over the years in wasting money.
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Sorry for the delay in replying.
I mean CFAVs should go through the same training as the cadets - perhaps with some sort of assessment before they’re let loose in the classroom. Some bits of leading to master cdt classification training can be a bit technical. Not doing the cadets any favours if staff aren’t 100 % knowledgeable. CFAVs can’t teach drill or skill-at-arms without demonstrating sufficient knowledge of the subject.
And I say again, why are we even bothering with Classification Training any more? First Class is adequate everything else is either irrelevant or out of date or both. I have it from a decent source that the new Commandant has already questioned why we are still delivering Piston Engines.
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The classification system used to mean something, especially when it was tied to a certain number of hours on projects (for the ATC) or completing a degree of NCO, specialist and adventurous training (for the CCF). But a multiple guess open book, take whenever you want test doesn’t have the same clout. I still deliver it as it’s part of the syllabus but think it’s a waste of time in the current climate.
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This… So much this
It’s gone from cadets actually caring about getting a new badge to staff pestering when they haven’t sat their exam.
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Most of which never happened and was just signed off for random stuff to tick a box.
We aren’t preparing people for National Service yet we insist on teaching things that are of no use whether you join the forces or not.
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What would be fill quite a bit of the 6 months of winter with if we didnt have this…
Only so much, radio, first aid, indoor sports etc you can do
Also I would add, we are an aviation organisation and anyone who wants to do anything remotely connected to learning to fly would start on a piston engine aircraft…
What does the commandant suggest we replace it with?
My initial thought is that, apart from flying (lolz), the thing that sets us apart from the ACF is the amount of quasi-academic training that we can offer. Whether we like the summative assessment or not, cadets can get a BTEC and some cdts will use this as UCAS points / apprenticeship applications etc.