Out of interest, what are the timescales people are experiencing to onboard a brand new CI? This would be from point of contact to probationer status appearing on SMS as a staff member. The important clarification on timescales is the new CI being allowed to start attending the squadron parade nights.
Have you asked WHQ to update them?
They should have never been on probation, but WHQ need a prompt.
The same applies for the 6 months, nothing triggers WHQ
My last 2 have both been 1 month… one of those was longer than that from initial interest email as my reply to them went to junk, but once they then replied and visited, it was 1 month
The BPSS has been the slowest part for us, but this is purely because our Sector Commander needs to sign our applications and she isn’t always around.
For most new CIs I’ve seen recently, we’re talking 6-8 weeks from application to appointment as a Probationer.
There’s then the fun of them completing their mandatory training and the AVIP consolidation day, but I’m assuming we’re not including those within this question?
If yours are taking longer than this, and you’re unable to get a meaningful reply as to why from up above, it may be worth inviting the views of your RC.
I’ve done 2 since Covid. One was straightforward and about 3 months. The other was messed up by WHQ/RHQ and took 7-8 months. By which time their job had changed…
Including the mandatory training and AVIP consolidation day 3 months. Neither has prior experience with cadets so will have the normal 6 months probationary but can do all the Sqn bits absolutely fine.
The longest bit on one of them was actually getting Wing to put the date on sms so we could press the relevant buttons to move from applicant to probationer so they could actually do their mandatory training.
i do not, but i do recall someone telling me, and this was probably 12 years ago now, that it was something like the MOD spent £20/Air cadet/year and was more like £38/Army Cadet/year
it may £200 and £380 but whatever it was the point the person was making was the ATC was much more effective with its funds than the ACF…
looking at the numbers assuming 50,000 Cadets at £20/Cadet that is only £1 million which seems far too a low, so perhaps it was £200 = £10 million as a budget?
looking at those figures it looks like it was something like that…
it certainly looks like the ACF is almost/closer twice the price of ATC per cadet even if the figures i used were wrong…
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According to a statement by the Minister of State the total cost to the MOD of the cadet forces in 2018/19 was put at £175m
https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/cadet-forces-funding-and-social-impact/
But there is no breakdown by CF.
Will be all the pyro blank rounda and DTE I suppose. It’s their raison d’etre vs a relatively niche sport for us
Thanks for the feedback everyone. It looks like most suffer 3 months to get new staff parading at the most. I have never seen this and will discuss with my sector commander.
Yep all done before, we gave up asking in the end and had an e-mail from the RC to allow them to do activities. We shouldn’t have to be chasing this stuff, we are the part timers!
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And you wonder why Squadrons have difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff.
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It depends on your squadron interests so to speak. We are able to use the Squadron 3 nights mid week around the Army cadets parade nights. At the moment we don’t need to however we have discussed the idea of having 1 night for Drill and Classifications, 1 night for multiple activities and 1 night for the band. The cadets then would have the option of 2 out of the 3 parade nights depending where their commitments fall. We have a band officer and a band CI and the others would be utilised on the other nights
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At time of this reply I’m 2 months and 18 days into the application to join my local Sqn as CI.
After a lot of follow up to wing and Ucheck was informed that my DBS is at Stage 5 Police check and should be another 5 weeks.
This is doesn’t take into account the few weeks trying to sort out getting in to see the Squadron etc.
Will just have to see how long it takes to get “On the Books”
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Something isn’t right there. DBSs are currently taking 1-2 weeks total, so to still have 5 weeks remaining suggests someone is telling porkies.
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A clean DBS should be very quick now. There is still of course the chance that someone has something that comes up that those doing the check need to look into to see if it requires disclosure. This could add a lot of time.
But yeah, all the ones I’ve seen done on UCheck have taken less than 3 weeks total!
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Mine is the longest WHQ has seen and took 2 months total.
Others are coming back in days.
I hadn’t even crossed a constabulary border.
Hope it comes through for you soon.
To be fair, I have since sat down with our sector commander and we ran through the process end to end. A few things have changed that should help however, the key to success is looking like the applicant needs to see ticks against everything and see a submit which they need to use! The OC needs to login to the volunteer portal and Units more often. Need to keep an eye on the applicants progress as there is a view in units that shows this. Fingers crossed on the next one…