The WSOs running units is not an option as they could be needed somewhere and as for double hatting you’d need to be pretty much someone with no job or life to do it any justice.
Why is one of the RCs not given the job to actually look at why people
1 don’t go into uniform
2 don’t people commission
3 did people join as staff
Do this by an anonymous survey like survey monkey sent to all addresses, to be forwarded to those without ATC emails.
It could be initially targeted at those actually doing it and ask direct questions along the lines of “given the way the ATC is structured do you feel you pressured to Commission” with remarks for yes or no responses.
I would say more people (ignoring direct ex-cadet commissions) do it due to the “arm twisting” of constant suggestion, to satisfy local need, than a real and undiluted want to do it.
Depends on the ToR’s the Secror Commanders are working to. In lots of Wings they have a Sector to run, plus a portfolio of other jobs. It’s a bit much to run a Sector be Wing Training Officer and run a Squadron.
In my experience most Sector Commanders already double hat, so what would Wings where that is happening (or indeed is policy) do once Pilot Officers we’re banned from running units?
Never work.i mean they use their MOD Staff ID card for access and have no idea whats it like to wait in a guardroom for a escorted pass then have to walk in pairs every were
The only WSO on our Wing who doesn’t double hat is the WC.
I think it is unreasonable to expect Sqn Cdrs to double hat by running two squadrons. If you have a Plt Off or Fg Off they run the squadron, failing that a SNCO or even in extremis a CI.
But this doesn’t address the issue of not enough specific staff across the Corps, but HQAC have their heads firmly in the sand on this for years rather than addressing it. Unless they can understand why people don’t or won’t, the situation won’t improve in terms of officers.
But this is too difficult as the mood across the whole of society is not to volunteer, especially wrt children.
It doesn’t help us that the application process is too convoluted and time consuming and attendance is prevented until a lot of boxes have been ticked. People can volunteer in schools and have one to one contact with just a DBS with the school or one they ‘transfer’.
I wonder if when people come to us, if they could start straight away, we’d get more remain. For the twitchy sphinctered it could on an supervised basis, until the DBS clears.
that one is easy to answer - promote them to a rank which is permitted to run a Squadron.
if someone is streamlined, either because of a longstanding agreement or desire from a candidate to be an OC, or simply because someone got to a point and decided “yup, commission is for me” knowing it will lead to an CO position what does it matter what piece of cloth is on their shoulder???
In our wing we’ve seen 3 units run by WOs, I know of others in the Region run by FS.
does that piece of cloth determine anything of importance or actually relevance in this organisation to run a Squadron?
imo - no. unlike the RAF the (useful) skills of the individual and their rank are completely independant.
I know of self-employed business owners who are CIs, and COs who are admin staff/librarian’s at their work - on paper it could be said the skills of the business owner are better suited to the role of CO but that isn’t how the organisation works.
it is rank lead rather than skills based.
and the position and attainment of rank is often independant to skills.
certainly when it comes to being Commissioned, rank held it can be a willingness to be a CO!
if someone wants to be CO, they have the right mind set, skills, attitude and the like and there is a position the chances are they’ll be one - why should the width of a piece of blue thread matter??
Certificates are sent to the applicant rather than Wing and then have to be verified and sent to WHQ - in our Wing they permit an email with the appropriate scan and annotation in the email body.
That maybe the case, but we need to accept that we are linked to HM Forces and therefore there is a risk no matter how small of a terrorist joining to access information and or training. We need to accept there is a delay in having checks made snd we are not like a school etc
What complete and utter tosh.
What information and or training? How much do we see or know about that can’t be found on the web already? A slim chance if they go on an annual camp or RAF station, but even then we won’t be shown anything on a visit that is that secret.
A terrorist could go for a job in a school and have access to many hundreds of young minds to turn.
In the deal world perhaps, but the reality is a long, long, long way from that.
So you have an ex-cadet 20 years old who after two to three years gets given “the chair”, who will invariably have SNCOs with similar or very much more often 3 or 4 times the years in harness. These SNCOs will invariably have been doing jobs on the squadron while the officer was a cadet. So who has the more experience and please do not mention the ATF courses as they are pointless box ticking exercises that bring nothing to the party, except meeting others. BUT this does not make people any more able to run a squadron, except in an organisation that is driven and obsessed with administration.
Tell me that you don’t know of SNCOs with much more experience and better able to run squadrons, than many of the 2-3 years in officers put into command?
It has to be a concern that we still have to bow to this moronic notion that in a youth organisation struggling for staff we have to play the RAF game that only officers can run squadrons, in conjunction with that in the Air Cadets SNCOs have to be first and foremost drill/discip, stores, instructors and not leaders or doers, just followers.
This is a massive limiting factor and one I feel is perpetuated purely to deliver the myth.
Does a squadron do any less or fair any worse if it is run by a SNCO or even a CI?
It comes back to the question of why do people who commission shy away from running a squadron? As I say until HQAC get into the nuts and bolts of that we will not move forward and remain stuck with the situation of triangular pegs in square holes.
Frankly if I was ageing out and starting out as staff today, I wouldn’t even go into uniform.