I understand the background of having multiple separate documents for policy, but in the interests of avoiding duplication and ensuring everything is easier to find, why don’t we simply have a single ACP1 “Regulations for the RAFAC” and then give what are now individual policies their own chapters?
It would surely make everything easier to find for volunteers, and would likely make AI signposting easier in the near future.
With everything being in one document, you could probably merge certain elements a little more easily too, where they are perhaps separate areas that inevitably cross over.
Are there any difficulties I’m overlooking here? Not sure who to make that suggestion to now that ASTRA is dead?
The problem is all the different owners of the various sections and how digital control documents.
I know some people are trialling having policy documents as web pages instead of specific documents to make updating and versioning easier. This then might lead on to something like you suggest but may also make that solution too big a single page/document to be consumable.
What we really need is the use of co-pilot linked to the doc store initially.
There is also policy coherance working group that is focussing on the wider issues of different policies contradicting or overlapping so hopefully between the 2 it will become more workable for end users.
It’s just too easy to forget stuff. And the people who need it the most are the people who will need to work out which policies they need to search for but may have forgotten about!
We do it is called AP1919. All other policy documents get their authority from it.
But
It has never been properly updated because of the introduction of the CFC and what happened to the VR commissions we held prior the the introduction of the CFC.
No longer a JSP.
CCF Regulations is now AC72133, and authored by SO1 Combined Cadet Force (Policy and Plans), HQ Regional Command Cadets Branch.
Cadet Training Safety Precautions (2014) was rewritten and renamed Immediate Actions Aide-Memoire for Cadet Force Adult Volunteers, but kept the same publication code of AC72008. Still referred to as ‘the red book’, but as you said, the test is no longer administered.
I don’t know of which edition it went from JSP535 to AC72008.
Having had a brief run through it fairly recently, it was refreshing to leave with the impression that everything one could need was in the same document under one table of contents.
If I had total autonomy and a few barcodes on my shoulders, I’d do something like this:
No more bulky PDFs, everything is nicely hosted similar to the scouts on a nice sectioned and easily searchable (across all policy!) website. Single search bar, type in (say) drugs and it’ll give the search results for the relevant sections from sg policy, pers policy etc. Something like https://www.getoutline.com/ kinda vibes. Being able to export a section as a pdf is probably important for offline on-event working, so long as it’s clearly labelled as uncontrolled (and that’s a current problem when versions change anyways, no way to allow offline working and prevent old versions being held whatever the system)
We drop all the stupid acronyms (like come on who the hell knows what an ACPEDTI is). I still think it’s important to have something that identifies each section other than a section number for clarity, so I’d propose a system similar to ACTOs but with (at most) two or three acronyms, ACTO and ACAO (…Administration Order). Everything we do fits into one of those boxes. Perhaps a third if I’m forgetting anything or a general “Core Policy” for things like uniform that doesn’t fit.
That means you can easily refer to the section that contains personnel policy with a nice ACAO XYZ, or space policy as ACTO XYZ (rather than a potentially long x.y.z.a version number) but crucially it’s one section of the knowledgebase and not an entirely separate document. And, even better, no more “hm is this going to be an ACP, or perhaps an ACTO, or maybe an ACATI)”
Hard ban on IBNs acting as policy unless in emergency. If an IBN contradicts the published policy, it loses to said policy. IBNs being only for notification summarising the changes (i.e. the recent uniform stuff)
Each SME has their page (policy section), and subpages if needed, acting as a SSOT for everything in their area, i.e. one radio page rather than the mess of ACPs/ACTOs that exist for it atm.
Clearly labelling governance and ownership for each section.
Where RAF/MOD policy means linking JSPs/DINs/APs then give them an annex at the end with a summary of what’s in the document and what’s relevant to the RAFAC, with a SharePoint link to find it.
I agree that a single document would be far too long, but putting it all in one clear and searchable place surely would be easier than the mess of a key docs library we have atm.
Apologies for essay, I’m procrastinating exam prep and it’s a fun thought experiment. As always when I’m thought experimenting, please do poke holes in anything.
That’s the point on length though — we no longer print them and put them on the shelf, so a single, searchable format allowing you to quote and share links to certain sections would be great.
I agree too about getting rid of all the numbers.
They’re useful (as would be chapters) for fixing everything in a specific place relative to everything else, but the human mind doesn’t do numbers. We need a system that depends on language we actually process and retain more easily. And is searchable as such.
Imo a nice piece of software made for large documentation would be the best of both worlds there with interlinking/searchability/granular version control. I suspect with a single large PDF with many thousands of pages we’d have:
People who insist on using a personally downloaded copy to mitigate the (potentially large, I know my unit wifi is appalling!) time to load/process/search it, and would exacerbate the “uncontrolled document” problem.
HQ insisting on an even more complex process to be able to make and publish amendments to it.
I would have set calendar for policy updates. No short notice up updating policy unless it is a risk to life safety update.
All changes would have a notice period of what is going to be updated. The policy would then be published to all for reading and comment and a fixed implementation date. This will allow for planning and preparation for the new policy during the planning cycle and not just before the activity is going to take place.
As an example, syllabus training. As this follows the academic year, no change are to be made between September to the following June. Any changes in policy are to be announced/released in June or July, for implementation on the 1st September. This would leave a month for comments and questions to be raised on the new policy. If you have missed the boat, then you will have to wait for a year.
Same for heat illness, no changes between April and October
Adv Trg, new policy released 1 Dec implementation 1 March.
Key take away is that no policy document will change without the changes being published well in advance.
Most of what we do will have seasons of more activity and less active activity. All updates should be planned, the volunteer should not find out after any change is made.