Quoting myself as it’s a long thread & also that I’m not opposing the change in policy (although the way the decision was communicated/enforced/cascaded was woeful.
My bold. I think this is where part of the philosophical clash is coming from.
A lot of CFAVs are trained & experienced in risk-based decision making.
You have judges, lawyers, company Nebosh qualified H&S advisors, social workers & contingency planners.
You have those who work in education or teaching some of whom are headteachers of large schools - arguably more experienced in making risk based decisions regarding children than anyone in the armed forces.
You have those who are in the emergency services, A&E doctors, nurses, paramedics, senior fire service personnel & police officers.
I know of one CI who is a C/Supt in their day job, qualified to chair gold & silver SCG/TCGs making life & death risk based decisions sometimes using military personnel requested under MACA
This is the nature & strength of volunteers & what results in a lot of the questioning when decisions are not understood.
I imagine the number of politicians & civic representatives people that CFAVs have to deal with is huge compared to what their equivalent in the regular military (I personally knew two ministers in the last government on a social level & they would always ask me how the cadets were doing & what the latest troubles & frustrations were)
The trouble is that the RAF & armed forces are experienced in making decisions around military and aviation matters - less so about the civilian world that is community village fetes & the wider outside world.
I imagine somewhere in the training catalogue of training courses that there is a “vehicle marshalling course” probably for RAF police officers that confirms that they are authorised & trained to marshal & direct traffic.
It then begs the question, particularly if a cadet was injured, that if the RAF didn’t let adults marshal vehicles without a qualification, why would they let 13 year old cadets? God forbid being asked that question by a barrister at an inquest.
the clash is that because these volunteers haven’t done the RAF risk based decision training they can’t be regarded as qualified as from a liability perspective they’ve not done the military course that underwrites & insures the decision if that decision turns out to be the wrong call.
In the majority of cases the CFAVs are the personnel with the greater knowledge & experience than the paid staff to safely deliver an activity.
However the decision & liability lies with the paid staff which is also right as that way a well meaning volunteer is not getting pilloried by the powers that be should things go tilt.
What this means though is that more than any other part of the military the communications within RAFAC/ATC needs to be spot on from the start, with explanations & rationale on each major decision & a respectful understanding that the volunteers are more knowledgeable/experienced that the HQ.
Whilst the volunteers may or may not understand the decisions (& remember they cannot be given a lawful order), they will, in general, be more accepting of something that respects their unique skills & experience and it will in turn build trust between the paid staff & the volunteers.
On a side note, something that undermines the decision making by the paid air cadet staff is when other MoD cadet forces make different decisions to those for the Air Training Corps (CCF get complicated in this instance).
Drones, flying, car-parking, parachuting it seems the ATC loses out whilst the other cadet forces crack on.
Particularly if it is a safety matter where we should be working under similar regs across the MoD, decisions regarding cadet forces should be consistent as it just makes the decision maker to be perceived (volunteer managers deal with perception not reality) as risk averse & not confident in making decisions around risk.
At the absolute worse it makes them appear as disconnected & incompetent which isn’t fair as I pretty sure that this is not the case & the vast majority of paid staff are making if not the right decisions then certainly for the right reasons.
During volunteers week the air cadets were not permitted to post on social media allowing the sea cadets to park their tanks not just firmly on our lawn but in our garage using our kitchen & living room for messing, posting about their success in shooting, fieldcraft, aviation flying and the cadet experience in general.
It is a little embarrassing and something that erodes the trust between the volunteers & the paid staff who, from the ones I know, are fighting the volunteers quarter as best they can under really trying circumstances.