While what you’ve written is entirely true, is there much evidence from the last decade that HQAC either lamented that, or tried to find workable solutions/adaptations/alternatives?
The first step in getting better is to accept that you’re a bit crap. I never saw any acceptance that the cadet experience had suffered, and that we needed to find ways of improving it for the vast majority of cadets.
We are where we are, and while we have to understand where we are in order to move somewhere else, a little bit of humility, and a good shot of ambition would help a great deal in improving things.
That’s a fair point and hopefully a fresh pair of eyes will be able to view the organisation objectively.
Given that he’s an ex-cadet I imagine he has some views on what we used to be like. Unless he gets out of Lincolnshire though he’s not going to have any idea how most of the organisation operates. We don’t all live in RAF country.
Surely any Day 1 “to do list” will have to be tempered by the recent RAFAC Survey results? Pointless exercise changing road directions if the Survey throws up traffic lights a few miles further on.
Email every OC and ask ‘what 10 things do we not need to do?’, aggregate the replies and bin the 10 most common answers.
Bin RHQ’s. By all means continue to use the staff for other stuff - make RC(N) the ‘what the hell?’ champion, make RC(W&W) the AT champion, but we simply do not need two layers of geographic command.
this,
all admin goes straight to RHQ
All SMS cleared by RHQ where needed
paid staff move ot RHQ
No WSO, work done at RSO level
Increase the number of regions to 10 for better local support
Regions split into 3 sectors for local events eg sports, field days etc
Purposefully being Devil’s Advocate here… is the “local knowledge” only as local as what as been ingrained into the organisation as being “local”? If we were split into slightly larger geographic areas, would that “local” knowledge just morph and evolve?
(Caveat: I’ve been staff in one of the smallest footprint wings, and one of the largest, and I haven’t seen any difference in knowledge Wing staff hold - so the geographic size doesn’t seem to be a factor)
That’s doable, as a youth volunteer through the Gov/DBS website. The RAF’s STEM Ambassadors, who are all volunteers, do their that way and it’s at no cost.
I agree that reconfigured RHQs, which would subsume all the current HR within the Wings, ( and given the appropriate IT support) has potential. However, even a cursory reading of the topics on this forum will confirm that there is little agreement on what they should be supporting. Perhaps before a reorganisation of “troops to task” we need confirmation of what the task(s) will be. The Defence and Security Review will undoubtedly cause ripples across all MOD sponsored activity. Until the implications are fully understood, the rebrigading of full time RAFAC HR support could be precipitate.
