Are there stats on how many staff are currently in the corps. and how many have joined and left since the return to F2F?
If there are, I too would like to see.
See this report for statistics
MB
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I believe it is tracked by HQ but not released generally apart from the MOD stats. We are still very much in the pandemic so will have a lot of people sitting on units who haven’t gone back to a unit for F2F and have not been given the ultimatum to go back or go NEP so stats may still not represent true numbers.
Also there are probably units stringing things out, hoping to hold on to some of these absentees on the reporting for just a bit longer…
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You would get into some very dodgy waters taking that approach. I know some in the Air Cadets like to take the ball=breaker approach to staff and to cadets and wonder why people say no thanks.
I’m not saying this needs to be done in some mass cull but it is part of being a unit commander, at some point you need to have the conversation with staff who don’t turn up as to their future. This might be 12 months off yet for some but will skew the stats still.
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I do wonder why we worry about stats like this, we are a volunteer organisation so it’s not like there are any ongoing "employer’ costs/provisions, so we can have as many staff on the books regardless of them turning up as long as they tick the required boxes. Which is why I never press staff who don’t attend for periods of time.
It is safe to say that staff who leave, leave and don’t hang around.
Can name at least 7 units in my wing, who I 100% know without a shadow of a doubt have both inflated cadet and staff figures.
My wing could easily shut 6 of these 7 and no one would notice.
In total they have actually parading between them, less than 35 cadets…
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Inflating the staff stats on a unit is only going to be a detriment to your unit. When looking at units that might need additional support from a WHQ or above level who’s more likely to get it? The unit who has 15 active staff on the books where actually only a couple turn up or the one who’s only got 3?
We do have costs to running a unit and “keeping the lights on” if a unit is non-viable there should be considerations on if keeping it open is the best for the unit even if its a temporary closure/merge with another local unit while it recovers.
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Also costs the squadron a sizeable amount of money in Wing levy.
That is only for cadets. Although as long as their subs come in they stay on the books, which now with all but a small number paying by STO or DD, means money coming in even if they don’t attend. Unlike the old days of chasing for non payment.
Maybe staff should pay subs.
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Yes, maybe they should, it’s not as if they give enough already now is it?
I’m going to like your post, just as this is my favourite utterly ridiculous comment I think I’ve ever read on this forum.
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Yearly CFAV stats actually show a slight increase from the pre pandemic reporting period for the ATC. Will need to see what the stats are like in April 2022 for comparison.
ATC
April 2019 - 10,680 (4,290 uniformed)
April 2020 - 11,680 (5,360 uniformed)
April 2021 - 10,710 (4,980 uniformed)
CCF (RAF)
April 2019 - 690 (610 uniformed)
April 2020 - 579 (530 uniformed)
April 2021 - 520 (480 uniformed)
MB
That increase of 1000, and 1000 uniformed, seems weird to me.
It would also surely have represented (prior to the drop off) a multi year backlog for ATF. Or the “academy”, or whatever it is now.
When was the volunteer agreement “cull” scheduled to happen?
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Not sure we’re looking at anything that egregious, but there’s a big enough fear right now that support isn’t the default response, with people out there looking for any excuse to close and merge.
As for unit viability, if plans and actions are in place to recover numbers, I think buying time to let that happen is going to make a lot of sense to those going through that.
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Big consistent drops there…
CEP clearly going well…
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Years ago, I kept a member of staff on the books for several years afterwards and they never took her off.
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Makes sense though;
ATC in the community we know what we know, we put up with the grief.
CCF staff see their Army counterparts engaging in more training, less admin and the paid staff pushing more opportunities to the Army sections.
We have CCF staff on here that have made comments about this before, but the staff I know in person say that the school kids see the army getting more opportunities so tend to join the Army contingent and they feel they are unsupported, left with smaller sections.
This means the RAF sections will either eventually close or the staff jump ship.
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