With regards to the roll out of CEP
It isn’t happening in Scotland so I wonder how that affects us north of the border (political issues)
They are going to do something in schools but the pupils involved need to be already in a cadet unit out with.
[quote=“Batfink, post:40, topic:3470”]
CEP is a quick win to get around this. Schools will eventually foot the bill for the majority of the cadet forces - no accomodation overheads, no burdensome RFCA meetings, reduced staffing costs etc. The local community units immediately around the CEP schools will wither and die. The RAFAC will claim “great success” as the head count will probably remain unaffected as the cadets, within 2 years, wont know any different.
[/quote]I think that the concept of school funding and facilities could be a winner, if handled properly.
I think that a community cadet force unit, located on school grounds with some of its own facilities (offices, stores, etc) and able to use some school facilities (areas to parade, classrooms, sports halls, etc) with the school fully supporting the unit (rather than treating it as an inconvenience or a source of rent money) could be effectively the best of both worlds. Not easy to get in practice though… maybe have it give a positive effect on OFSTEAD ratings? 
[quote=“Batfink, post:40, topic:3470”]
HQAC is like a ghost ship, and expecting them to support the RAFAC organisation of its current size on their limited numbers has proven unsustainable - those late VA payments, lack of support and shoddy admin a product of this situation - and has had a knockon affect at CFAV level. [/quote]Of course, the simple solution of bin region HQs and plough the money saved back into HQAC never seems to get anywhere…
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How much is her salary?
Could save the cash by removing her position?
Here’s a seperate question, do ACO orifices receive an RAF Pension? And I bet it’s the old final salary pensions too.
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That’s because all the attention and focus is on “Westminster is bad and takes all our money”
So anything the rest of the UK does, Scotland does the opposite or cuts its nose off to spite its face.
Oh a ridiculous idea of banning all cars in 2040? Well Scotland’s going to do it in 2032. That will teach the English.
Meanwhile everyone will just drive over the border to buy their cars for 8 years.
All very well saying the schools could run it, great idea on paper, but, err… who do they get to staff it? Do their staff not do a full time, stressful job teaching kids during the day? It’s not a public school, where the staff would be based on site and they get a ton of support from the forces. What about during holidays? Would they let local adults in to run it? Or is is 100% about the school?
If you moved community units onto a school site, the facilities would improve, you’d hope that the school would have a better understanding and would also increase numbers.
Staffing would continue as per, just the location would change. Otherwise it becomes a school unit rather than community.
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Community based school units - haven’t we already been here? They used to be called School Squadrons.
They were closed or merged & those that weren’t were forced to become open Sqns anyway. Generally those units then closed because the schools were unhappy that Cadet buildings were on their sites for whatever reason from ‘we can’t be seen to be promoting the military’ to ‘we need a new classroom, that Cadet building will have to go’. Heads didn’t care enough about school based units to assist with fights against closure.
Near me I can think of five school based units. One stayed as a closed Sqn until it’s closure several years ago. One became an open Sqn but was then closed a few years later. The other three I’m unsure if they were ever school squadrons (first two were) or just had huts in the grounds, but one recently closed, one is being moved & may not survive (due to building work) & the other has been threatened with closure in the past (not sure of it’s situation now).
Based on my experience, looking to base squadrons in schools won’t work in the majority of cases.
OK I get the majority of politicians, who actually know what cadets are, think cadets = CCF because of their backgrounds. But other than pushing the cost of the cadet movement onto another government department (and I believe that was the real reason for the program) how can they believe the CEP model is in anyway inclusive?
Let’s assume you get a school to agree to start up a unit. The community sqn closes. Are the sqn staff going to transfer - unlikely the school will staff from within. The cadets at that school will most likely join the new unit. What about all those cadets from the other schools in the area. Are they going to join? Would they be allowed to join? Unlikely - what would be the point of a school unit in that case.
Either way most of the community will be excluded.
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I know all about the Scottish Nazi parties policies
My query was how if stated the move from community units to school unit would affect us if you are not allowed to put up school units
Whilst perhaps a “plus” on any budget planning purposes, probably only a relatively small financial advantage?
It would seem likely that the RAF is facing a similar “shrink down” option - most bases were built in the 1930’s, so the infra-structure is rapidly approaching 100 yrs old. The bases were probably built with a much shorter lifespan in mind. Now, the costs of maintenance, refurbishment (& / or new build accommodation, etc) are sky-rocketing. Word on the street is 4-5 major bases may have to close down in 5-7 yrs?
Only if on a totally “private” arrangement, with no “RAFAC” input - all flights in non-Service aircraft (ACT035) are currently not permitted, policy under major review (& has been for at least 2 months I think).
That depends on the school catchment or more so where the kids come from at the school.
Our school has around 40% are OOA, so that’s one group that are very unlikely to come back to school later, then there are those who do other things and those that aren’t interested, who’d have thought that.
Then as wokka says are staff from the community squadron likely to move? Are kids from other schools going to join? It’s not just exclusion of others it would mean closing the community squadron and our school in the last 10 years has built new classrooms extending the school, so if the ATC squadron’s rooms are in the bit being demolished / changed it would probably have to close for that period. It would close for every school holiday period as most schools do not hire during those periods as all hirings (at the school I work in) require 2 members of site team which is a large part of the cost. There are no bookings for parent’s evenings, open days, curriculum evenings and any other similar events. No groups have their own keys to rooms or cupboards, they bring and take everything they need.
Our local schools are leafleted twice a year and we don’t get hundreds coming along, for the reasons I state above and I know the local schools are very popular with people who live the other end of the borough and out lying areas.
Then premises. Do you think that a school has rooms it could just set aside for offices and stores? Do you think schools have spare ground for an ATC hut? Putting a hut onto a school would mean losing playground or playing field. What about others using the school? Our school has groups that already use the school during the week and it’s a way of making money for the school, but it is expensive out school charges £30/hr for a room, so an ATC sqn say working from a hut has 3/4 rooms plus office(s) and stores, so conservatively for one parade night if you got a discount you could be looking at easily £150 per 2 hour night (c£11000 per year … around £350 per year per cadet based on 30 cadets). Our school doesn’t allow use of the gym/sports hall without a member of the PE staff to supervise at £25/hr and similarly the computers can’t be used unless a member of IT support is on-site again at £25/hr. Plus timings given we meet until say 9.30pm, I imagine the site staff would be complaining to the head if a sqn regularly much past that time, as they have homes to go to and would have been on-site for 14/15 hours by that time. All of our evening bookings are gone by 8.30.
If this was such a good idea why hasn’t it been the model for the last 75+ years?
I understand she is on £90,000 to £104,000 plus driver etc. I also understand she did 22 years in RAF there fore on talking up the post pension would of stopped while shes in RAFR fulltime then restarts on leaving. I don’t make the 22 years but I think the max pension is 22 years service. I’m sure some one will correct me
I see two issues with the footprint over all. Firstly RAF boss must have either white or red faces knowing that RAFAC have 40.000 plus cadets while RAF have say 5000 less and that cant be seen after all look at how many bosses they have to us.
Second issue for me is falling numbers in some Sqns and poor accm in them or is some, it cant be cost effected to run a Sqn with 9 cadets and still have to provide staff etc. An example one Sqn I know has over 60 cadets accm wise its not up to current H and S ie poor stairs, no disabled access few toilets yet its doing well, another one I know is in a joint cadet unit ie SCC, ACF and RAFAC new building about 2 years old yet it only has 9/10 cadets max. Another one is in a school with about 15/10 cadets, two of these lower cadet numbers are within 6 miles of each other. And they are to me the issues how do we keep Sqns so close to each other with low number of cadets. I know reports say we offer value for money provide good services etc but unless we can recruit and show the need for them we are at risk of losing some
If I was a teacher, the last thing I would want to do with my free time is spend it with the same kids in the same place I had spent all my day.
It’s a terrible idea.
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There’s your saving then.
Just for background information on cadet/adult numbers published 27 July 2017.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/mod-sponsored-cadet-forces-statistics-2017
Of interest may be the decline of cadet numbers when compared to the decline in the age cohort and the apparent relatively small decline in adult volunteer numbers.
Since April 2013 a decrease of 15.6% in ATC (not CCF) CFAV numbers. That’s a lot in anyone’s book.
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Agreed, but if you look at Page 1 of the spreadsheet and scroll back to 2011 the 2013 adult volunteer figure seems to be abnormally high. If you ignore that year the adult to cadet ratio varies from 3.03 to 3.4 (if my sums are correct). I accept that these figures assume an even geographical spread but in planning terms don’t show a huge variation.
Perhaps more interesting than the solid numbers - and in my Sector it’s about 20% - is the nature and extent of commitment per CFAV…
I unhappily say that my time commitment has reduced by far more than half since 2013 - now some of that is kids, wife under more pressure at work, the demands of the farm etc… but a good proportion of that is that I simply can’t be bothered. In 2012 I was my Sqn’s Training Officer, I’d be at the Sqn 6 nights a month and I’d have done 12/15 weekends a year and a week at Easter.
Now I’m down perhaps 2 nights a month, and I only go to stuff that interests me - AT, shooting and Fieldcraft - I’ll do four or five weekends a year and a week every two years.
Because - as you’ve alluded to - it would be difficult to set up. It’s the sort of thing that is best done higher up the chain than on a local basis.