I know exactly what it’s used for at Wing, thank you very much. I haven’t said I agree with the op, just that I understand why someone might think that.
They should raise all their own money without getting hand outs.
It’s not until you start to earn your own money, that you start to respect and value it. They are like children getting pocket money without having to do chores to earn it.
I would say that only 10% to 20% of cadets maximum, actually see any real benefit of the money handed over to Wing and substantially less for the proportions going to Region and Corps.
It depends on the wing. Ours seem to do nothing with it at all.
Well they could arrange their own subs collection of course, but that would be pointless admin for the sake of it and would be a pain in the bum for the cadets themselves who would have to pay twice.
Ask to see the accounts to see what is being done with the money, then decide if it is good value or not.
feel free to delete as it may fall under data protection but…
looking at our Wing accounts (available on Wing sharepoint)
income of £44k (£22k of this from Subs)
Expenditure
£16k to ATC GPF
£7k on UK Camps
£2k on overseas camps
£4k on IACE and Nijmegen
£3k on a Wing AT event
£5k on Wing HQ Expenses
£2k on Shooting and Sports
£1k on courses
total spend ~£40k
perhaps @pEp you could find your wings expenses and take a look what funds go on?
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Would be interesting to see a breakdown on that…
my thoughts exactly, although i fear not as exciting as it might appear…paper, print, and other stationary needs is likely to take up a fair proportion.
Consider a Squadrons “expenses” on similar tasks and scaled up to 5x days a week there is going to be more than £200 on a few sheets of paper for the year!
i would have thought if the minutes were read in any detail there would be proposals for X to be spent, or submissions of a receipt paying for Y…
But when everything gets emailed and left for squadrons to print, I imagine they’re booking coffee, biscuits, nail files and nail polish to that cost centre.
If it’s a function complete by the Full Time Wing staff, it shouldn’t be paid for out by the Wing Committee imo
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Whatever the source of monies, they are to be managed by ‘Charities’ intentionally for the benefit of the Cadets - that is in the stated aims and objectives. Steve679 suggests looking at account information on SharePoint, however Section 171 and 172 of the Charities Act 2011 imposes a requirement on all Charity Trustees to make reports and accounts available to the public, so effectively that means anyone who cannot access sharepoint - so mums and dads and any member of the public can take a look and see where how money is spent - let us not overlook the fact that these people are donors.
As it is, Squadrons do the hard work of raising money, which of course they keep, with only the portions of subs being claimed by Wing. The more success you have with the job at Squadron, the better your cadet numbers, and the better the Wing take. Wings are supposed to operate by the same objectives, and logically one would expect them to use monies for the overall benefit of the Cadets. What is not acceptable is for them to be used on W/Co’s pet projects. I have heard of monies being used inappropriately for Wing dining- in nights, and It would not surprise me that RAF 100 will qualify for some vanity projects. There is also a case of car hire payments for an overseas visit NOT involving Cadets.
I am sceptical about an item of £8518 labelled as Air Fares refund when there is no income shown against such a heading.
If it was not for the fact that the RAFAC is structured in a similar way to the parent service, there is actually little justification for Wing to be able to claim a percentage of Sqn subs, especially if they don’t spent it for the benefit of every Cadet within the Wing.
Aries
I would have thought Wing HQ would be public money cost. If that’s not been questioned then someone ain’t doing their job properly.
I can remember squadron spend being questioned that was fully supported by receipts and invoices.
Which side of Wing HQ though? I can see the permanent staff being provided with resources through public funds while the volunteer side would be treated the same way as squadrons.
The volunteer side AT, FMS, Sports, Training etc should have their own cost centres and any costs posted against those centres. As there is a lot of admin associated that should come out of Wing HQ public funded operation.
99% of Wing HQ costs are admin, if they are getting tea, coffee etc paid for from non-public money that is inappropriate, even at the squadron as staff we buy tea, coffee, milk etc between us. Cadets don’t pay subs so Wing HQ can have tea and coffee.
If these costs are “entertainment” they should be listed separately against the event.
I would say that Wing and indeed Region and Corps are already raising their own money - They charge the cadets a levy.
They’re not getting “handouts”, they are getting paid the amount they charge. We are merely collecting it for them.
Squadrons are free to set their own subscriptions. If any Squadron is suffering because the levy is “siphoning” too much from their pot then that Sqn isn’t charging enough subs.
Simple.
We currently charge £30 per quarter which pays our levy and puts enough into the local pot to support subsidizing a good number of cadet activities throughout the year and outright paying for a number of others; as well as funding the the purchase of general supplies and specialist equipment which directly benefits the cadets… I’m told that in comparison to the local Scout, Guide, and other youth groups we are cheap!
I fail to understand how any unit could be suffering by paying the levy which has always been there.
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Why should Wing etc charge a levy?
It’s not a question of the amount passed on eating into what’s collected, it’s the ethics of it. What we collect far exceeds what is handed over. But that money especially as it now seems we are having to spend more on things that should just come to cadets and spending on activities to make the Corps seem worthwhile joining and staying, is becoming less and less justifiable.
I have list of things to use the money for, none of which involve equipment as we have all we need, that has been accumulated over the years.
It is proving more and more difficult to get people to join committees and or help with the fund raising. Fund raising is the job of the Civ Com not to have cadets working as slaves, which I how I view bag packing having tried it, when it was supposed to the fund raising panacea.
Unfortuntely the ‘subs’ do not take into account the indivdual cadets ability to pay said ‘subs’. Where the squadron is located can have a big bearing on that ability. Take the inner cities for instance, the corps is slowly closing or merging the inner city squadrons and moving out to the ‘nice’ areas. I know of one area in the UK where there is NO inner city squadron, one closed and one merged. That leaves a population of 200,000 with no ATC representation.
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I’m afraid I just don’t see how charging £6 per cadet per year is a question of ethics.
Every major youth group charges subscriptions so we’re not doing anything which is considered unacceptable.
The suggestion seems to be that Wings, Regions and Corps, should be expected to go out and do their own fundraising projects. That’s unnecessary in my mind - there’s no need, because instead they simply charge a small amount per cadet to cover the costs involved in providing that part of the “cadet experience”.
What would the alternative be? Wing and Region have few full time staff who are already overworked. How would they be expected to “fund raise”? Giant car boot sale? Regional Commandant’s bag packing day? Spending hours writing begging letters to big businesses looking for sponsorship? All totally impractical.
Charge the service user (what equates to a very small amount of the subscriptions they already pay) like every other company does.
Where Squadrons have families who struggle to pay the subscriptions (we are a country village Sqn but we’ve had that too) that’s where their freedom to set their own subscriptions comes into play. The job of the CivCom is to manage that non-public money. If they can agree to reduce the subscriptions for certain cadets that’s fine. That’s up to them.
I just don’t really see how paying a small contribution to Wing, Region, and above is unethical.
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Part of the issue isn’t that we charge to provide the cadet experience, it’s what does their money get spent on?
Subs pay squadron equipment and running costs, flying, uniform and most of the military “stuff” we do is MOD funded so what are the cadets paying Wing for and are they seeing a value for money?
Obviously that will depend on what the individual Wing is spending on and they absolutely should be held to account for their spending the same way that Sqn committees are.
Our wing spend on a number of things - AT equipment such as climbing gear, paddling, team walking kit; we’ve replaced the aged Wing Banner recently; hire of sporting venues and provision of medals and prizes… The list could be quite long.
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