That could well be the case, the RA I looked at both happened to be from the same person but it was ropey & I personally wouldnât have approved it.
In the past with other events, even though Wing has signed off on an activity, I have withdrawn my Sqn from activities where Iâve read the RA & deemed it unsafe/not sufficient or just uncomfortable with it.
So yeah sometimes the person not happy with the level of risk is at Sqn level rather than at HQ.
Ultimately who decides the level of risk, sqn, wing, rgn, hqac, 22 grp? (Probably a rhetorical question).
Chief techs approach would at least try to close the spectrum of thoughts in a methodical manner without predetermining the outcome.
Iâve certainly raised concerns in the past too about what i perceived to be insufficient planning and risk assessments. I think we often get too focused on ticking the right boxes that RAs donât actually assess risks very well, they just present data weâre told to present.
Chris Connelly said on my LLA training that a good RA should be no more than 1 page. Otherwise people wonât read it and they wonât apply it.
I certainly agree. Our RAs are now full of mandatory things weâve been told need to be in there, which almost defeats the purpose.
This sort of thing may well lead to what you see as poor RAs. Pages of detail about climatic injuries etc, but no real depth to the actual specific risks associated with that specific activity.
The climatic injury one annoys me as itâs a classic example of what you describe as weâve told to use one thatâs just a copy & paste of the guide into a 5010c format.
No thinking or application - purely ticking a box.
The person who decides appears to be the person with the lowest risk appitite at any level.
On @Chief_Techâs example, that might be them deciding a Wing activity is too risky. In the car parking example, thats 22 gp deciding itâs too risky.
These issues may well be present in this case, but at no point has anyone involved in the decision making process fed that back.
Echoing some of the frustrations above, there hasnât been any communication on what options were considered to make this activity acceptable (aside from the CACâs email in a recent FOI request). It might be that a culture shift is needed, but no one has said that. We canât make changes if thereâs no feedback.
I wonder if the Safe System of Training was really designed to be implemented at the level we operate at? This is a wider discussion but my (limited) understanding was that it was brought in after a review of serious service incidents resulting in fatalities. As offspring of the parent service weâve then had it applied to us but has anyone looked at whether it is actually appropriate for our activities?
Iâm not saying the principles are wrong, or that there is a better way of doing it, but is it a military approach to a non-military arena?
I see how you think that in this situation, so moving onwards should there be a clear line of delegation and risk awareness.
Acto 10 was an early attempt to achieve this but seems it either hasnt been reviewed or brought in line with current guidelines.
Maybe Chiefs Techs methodology would form a basis of initial evaluation so it could be âsoldâ to the ultmate duty holder so could be either authorised or teeaked accordingly.
Ultimate if the risk is ALARP but the bosses feel the output (fundraising and community relations) could be achieved in other ways then the answer may still be no regardlees, just thought.
I do agree with this, but not being given the chance to apply control measures is the problem here.
I think what @Cab has seen (cadets walking directly in front of cars whilst directing them) is very dangerous. But that doesnât make the whole premise of car parking dangerous. Thatâs the real point Iâm trying to get across here. If I was running a car parking events and saw that happening, there would be some verbal retraining going on. Reminding them not to do that etc.
I think the problem here doesnât lie with the risk of car parking, it is a fundamental lack of wider risk management. Car parking is just what has been seen in this case. There are plenty of other examples where our TSA has seen things going on that are potentially dangerous. But thereâs been no stop order. A good email with lessons learned and what we can do better.
Also, all this talk of Safe System of Training, isnât that specifically applied to shooting and fieldcraft only, per policy. Itâs not actually a âthingâ for every other activity. Certainly I used to think the opposite but @dazizian mentioned it before that really, itâs designed to work with shooting and fieldcraft. Just useful elsewhere as a guide.
I agree, as an organisation we implement the SST too rigidly in areas where it is not intended, primarily due to a lack of service support, money and real understanding of the principles of the SST/W.
It is used by some as a hand rail to risk assessment which is okay. It is used by others as a rigidly defined framework that we must adhere to in order to do anything, thatâs not really appropriate for a lot of what we do.
I believe it was the Kaylee Macintosh incident that caused SSoT to be properly reviewed & implemented. I believe one of the issues is that the cadets were wearing adult buoyancy aid rather than child ones resulting in the cadet being trapped under the boat.
You then had âtotal safetyâ kick in after the nimrod crash which ended up being directed at us.
We might need someone NeBosh qualified to chime in. 
IâŚdisagree with this but I can see where you are coming from as anything too rigidly applied often misses the point & it should still have an essence of reasonably practicable.
The SSoT is a good simple mind set that anyone get their head around & is a straight forward was of applying it to Risk assessment & activity planning.
It does form part of the safe system of work within the MoD so really we should be applying it.
It prompts the necessary questions :-
Have you got the right people; have you got the right equipment; are you doing it in the right place; are you doing it in the right way;
I donât see how ignoring this useful tool makes us more safer.
If itâs dangerous to apply it, then yep donât use it but I donât see why you wouldnât unless itâs a demarcation thing that only those doing âmilitaryâ stuff should use it as itâs ânot for civviesâ
It took us ages to update to the new 5010c way of risk assessment so the reluctance to use SSoT maybe another example of the cultural inertia that is ingrained in RAFAC.
However if the SSoT is what gives the chain of command the confidence that we are safe as itâs what they understand, then even if was originally intend for another area thatâs what we got to apply & use.
Mention here then challenged.
Cheers 
Seen it both ways now. Certainly seems to be more âcovers everythingâ rather than specifically for mil skills.
Which is ironic because the inertia that led to us waiting years to go to the 5010c way of risk assessing was at HQAC. (How often on here were volunteers calling for the 5010 way of risk assessing).
SSoT is a good tool as it really is quite idiot proof, I always used it when signing off activities even if I didnât refer to it in quite the military terms.
I have to support Chief Tech in this discussion who clearly has knowledge. The Safe System of Work that includes Safe People, Safe Place, Safe Equipment and Safe Practice is a good handrail when looking at any activity not just higher risk activities. If you think about those headings when looking to create a SSoW you wonât go far wrong. Cab also mentions about tolerability. This goes hand in glove with ALARP however tolerability is on a sliding scale. With cadets, the tolerability for injuring a cadet or a volunteer member of staff is low and quite rightly. If we were prepping cadets for warfighting (not yet hopefully!!) then we would be in a completely different space when looking at tolerability. In addition if the activity owner or Duty Holder breaches their threshold for holding risk (goes back to the RA) then policy states they must elevate to the next level. The system is there to ensure we accept no unnecessary risk. Others in this thread have also stated about additional controls and I would support that if we could put those in place but if we were to look at the hierarchy of controls the first one is to eliminate and it looks as though that is where we are. PS for SA I have done numerous car parking and marshalling in my ATC career with no safety issues whatsoever but I have also come across people who should never be in control of a motor vehicle. The Army Cadet SEMS is ACSO1210. Have a look if you can get access. It is not a bad document.
Youâre applying that triangle incorrectly if you just go around cancelling anything that you see as potentially dangerous. Yes, elimination is first then substitution. If I applied that at work so strictly, weâd all be sat around doing nothing all day. Instead we add engineering controls, administrative controls and PPE to make what we do safe, or as safe as it can be, ALARP if you like.
exactly and what @intheshires is quoting is ERICPD
Eliminate, Reduce, Isolate, Control, Personal Protective Equipment, Discipline .
first eliminate the risk where possible, then reduce (eg time limited), isolate where possible, add controls, PPE and then enforce personal behaviour and attitudes.
Eliminating the risk of vehicles by removing them is not possible - else makes for a dull traffic marshalling exercise with no traffic.
reduce the risk vehicles pose by limited site speed/imposing a speed limit
isolate the risk by distancing traffic from the marshal - clear, appropriate and obvious directions and route to take across a field means a vehicle doesnât need to get within 20 feet of a marshal
control - apply other factors (training, appropriate supervision, etc)
PPE - hiviz
Discipline - donât be a D***
Edit: this is just the thoughts of some pleb on the internet, i am sure the RAFAC CoC could come up with a more substantial approach which could even be considered a policy or at the very least included into a generic RA and appendix
#justsaying
It almost feels that whatâs happened here is someone got to âeliminateâ, realised they couldnât, then wet their pants and cancelled everything without considering the consequences.
Until the decision log and rationale that I asked for earlier in this thread is released (a request which was wholly ignored by @Cab ), I see no reason to not believe thatâs whatâs happened.
First off, forgive my seemingly jumping around commenting on otherâs inputs!
Anyone who believes cadets will join for that is out of their mind. My CCF has only just formed a Navy Section, and theyâre getting more interest and more people joining than people joining the RAF section (the Navy section that is). They also have a flying scheme of their own, I note with interest.
Precisely none, or the scraps of whatâs left. Same issues that you disclosed in that particular comment cropped up in my CCF Unit, though I canât claim to have nearly the same quantity of flying time as yourself!
cue reference to my previous post about a Month ago where instead on commenting on how he has ensured that everyone elseâs flying experience and availability remains the same once ACPS gets reinstated, he asks very nicely if I could conform to ACP 1.
Which, as I think you or one of the other moderators quite correctly identified, doesnât apply to those outside the Cadet organisation. In other words, myself, and assorted various others here. A bit of common courtesy and decency is all thatâs needed.
As opposed to this which just sounds inflammatory and needless. And perhaps a tiny bit unprofessional?
What was it you said again to me just a tad bit over a month ago?
I must admit you do certainly seem to have a disdain for the Cadet organisation in general. You didnât really answer my question to a level that Iâd be happy with (to be precise, I donât feel that you did really answer it at all), and it does seem that out of the posts here⌠instead of going âwell, maybe we could see about introducing a 2 hour/half-day training programme for Cadets and Staff sponsored by/approved by x, y and z organisations to make sure Air Cadets Car Marshall safely and responsiblyâ and then come back with an answer, or perhaps make it clear if that approach has been tried and go âWeâre terribly sorry, but we have evaluated our options and given x reason, we feel would not be able to allow Cadets to marshal vehicles because it presents too higher a risk that we canât manageâ
However, to the best of my reading ability, thus far all you have responded with is one liners, and âThe risk to Untrained Children is Intolerableâ (which, I somewhat agree, no one really wants to see an Air Cadet become Flat Stanley, but the flipside to that is plenty of other organisations cue ACF, SCC, Scouts seem to be able to do it perfectly safely, and the vast majority of aware, sensible Air Cadets would probably be able to recognise standing in a Carâs blindspot or behind said Car when theyâre reversing is hardly the best of ideas.)
If you believe Cadets canât marshal vehicles safely (Iâm of the persuasion they are, on the basis that if Scouts, ACF and SCC are doing it, either theyâre taking unacceptable risks, or, more likely given ACF and SCC are also run by the MoD, it is safe and weâre overthinking the problem), and there is no convincing you that âuntrained Cadetsâ canât marshal cars safely, I suppose the question probably starts to become - well, why? Why are they considered untrained Cadets? Why could they not be made into âsemi-trained Cadetsâ with the right courses attended by staff, and a half hour brief delivered the meet before the event in question saying âdonât stand behind a car, make sure the driver can clearly see you, wear Hi-Viz, ensure you are not distractedâ etc? - Why couldnât we use 17 and 18 year old Cadets? - a number of whom presumably drive, and therefore probably understand the risks and hazards involved in manouevring a car, for example.
As it is, Car Marshalling has/had to be approved at a Wing Level anyway - Wing staff could come down to relevant unit one evening, have Cadets demonstrate safe procedure for marshalling a car, tick box, ask verbal questions to make sure Cadets understand âactions on driver not cooperating, etc.â and hey presto, no run over cadets on the day.
It does feel like we are delibrately tarnishing our own name here. As a couple of people have already reported here, our absence has been duly noted by organisers of events (see post 353), and our reputation as Cadets and Staff with a âcan doâ attitude, who are happy to represent at events at the local scale, is vanishing by the day.