I think my point is that we will have difficulty defining “Pivotal”.
What if you’re on a residential weekend just to keep the ratios correct but hold no qualifications? The weekend wouldn’t go ahead without you, but you may not be contributing in a traditional sense. What if you have a ton of quals, but they don’t get used?
The director/participant model that is being mooted is trying to place a monetary value on individual’s roles, and I don’t think that that is the way to go.
If I’m a participant on, say, a weekend camp, does that mean I don’t need to volunteer to be a duty bod? Or that that when training ends at 17:00, I can hit the bar and let the better paid staff do the evening stuff? Can I turn a blind eye to cadets misbehaving, cos I’m not a director of the camp?
if that were the case then these are the wrong ppl for the organisation.
and if that were then case if the proposal went ahead, then would that not also happen now?
how often have Sgts or Plt Offs had that attitude? sorry Sir, but your the WO/Flt Lt it is your problem as you get the big bucks.
I think you’re trying to find problems in the suggested system.
i doubt there will be a hard and fast rule as to what is a Director or Participant (ie to be director you need to be doing X, Y or Z plus be responsible for at least one of A, B or C) and it maybe on some events there will only be directors and no participants - just because there is a two tier system, doesn’t mean there has to be a split of both.
in the examples offered by M_V_L i’d suggest all would be Directors.
the point being of the system how it was explained to me is - the amount of effort is being rewarded regardless of rank so there isn’t the disparity of reward based on an arbitrary rank system which plays little influence on the event.
Rank is based loosely on time served and more so for Officers positions held in the Sqn/Wing structure (ie WSO or Sqn OC).
yet it is that measure which determines if someone gets £80 for a days paddling on the river or £50.
The counter argument to this is much like the CI wanting VA - want more money? become a OC. But i think we’ve established that most aren’t in it for the financial reward.
that said many will also agree that the VA doesn’t reflect the effort/input on an event and some have said the extra a Flt Lt gets over the rest of their Sqn Staff is their compensation for the extra effort of being an OC.
which to me sounds like we have to do an event to collect VA to be recognised for Parade night efforts which is completely backwards.
What to be recognised for your input in A, well do activity B and you’ll get some reward equal to your experience/role/knowledge/responsibility, regardless of the input made into activity B
what is then?
as that is how remuneration is typically awarded - the CEO gets more monetary value than the cleaners or night guard.
but they are all employees and we aren’t, thats why we get allowance and not salary.
Though with all the people here maybe we have an accountant somewhere
who understands why, if scale rates allow for £25 per day essentially why is the tax liability not only on the profit?
It does. I have seen a CI refuse to be the duty staff member on an annual camp because, to quote “you get paid to be here, and I don’t”. Which is a fair point. I’ve also been on camps where the CC gave CIs the option to swerve it for the same reason.
More than you would think. As the CO, I’ve had many an issue passed up to me because my staff have tried to address an issue, and failed. As a CC, if the other staff can’t deal with an issue, it gets passed to you to deal with.
Then what is the point? If everyone can be a director, and there is no criteria to satisfy, then what’s the point in the lower rate?
Like I said, who decides what is worth the upper rate, and what is worth the lower rate?
The current system isn’t perfect, but at least the pay scale as it is reflects the experience that a CFAV brings to an event.
I have known CCs who won’t allocate night duty to CIs for that reason, but I’ve never yet met a CI who wasn’t happy to muck in anyway.
I’d take the contrary view which is that, regardless of VA or not, the CI volunteered to attend camp to perform duty as a staff member. Part of duty for staff on camp is to do one night duty. They knew what they were signing up for, so to find one who refused to do be on duty would niggle me.
Re the point about getting paid based on your role in the activity, it doesn’t work like that in the parent service. Their pay is rank based so why shouldn’t ours be?
For the reasons that have been pointed out above: compensating for unrecognised expenses, recognition for doing more than average volunteers would, incentive for going into uniform etc.
to distinguish between those who make an event happen and those who simply attend.
taking staff courses as an example we can get VA - yet the instructor who could be a Fg Off or NCO gets less reward than their students who has simply attended.
Large Wing events this is the same. A Wing Training Day or FC weekend may have half a dozen directors who put in more effort than others who turn up.
A smaller Wing course, such as a First Aid or Radio Training course may have 2-3 instructors where all are directors as their input has been equal.
i would suggest the event organiser.
but that experience may be irrelevant to the event.
a Sqn OC Flt Lt doesn’t bring anything to the event if they are a student on a course, or the nominated First Aider on a range day, or a Museum day trip their Sgt put together. the experience of the Flt Lt is irrelevant in the success of the event.
as an example my last First Aid course (refresher) was run by the Wing FA Officer a SNCO, yet there were a number of Officers (and more Senior SNCOs) on the course as “students” - none of their “experience” had an influence on the course yet the VA as you indicate recognises this…
Why are we recognised for effort and experience in role A by completing event B despite the effort and experience of A having little/no relevance to event B??
but their rank is directly proportional to the role in the activity.
the pilots role in the training sortie is recognised by the pilots salary
the ground crews role in that same training sorties is recognised by the ground crew salary
CFAV are multi-skilled in a way which doesn’t fit the parent service reward (pay/salary/VA) scheme.
A Sgt can be an event organiser for an AT event, Cadet training course, or charitable event just as equally as their Sqn OC can be…our role on Squadron doesn’t determine the role on the “extra” stuff…
Reading through these comments I think it is very clear that there is no perfect way to administer VA, and no perfect way of grading it. So what we have isn’t perfect, and if we changed it the likelihood is that it would be to something that also wasn’t perfect.
Maybe when the “admin portal” becomes alive and kicking and VA is easily claimable without sending off paper forms and can be administered by the event organiser upon closing the event on SMS that will make an improvement in how it is claimed at least.
Otherwise causing a fuss might just be the end of getting anything at all.
I think it is contentious - and I find it interesting that the Scouts don’t even get given their uniform…
It varies from group to group. I had to buy mine, but I was also given a few second hand bits for free.
Scout groups have a lot more autonomy than ATC units. As @mprentice1 has mentioned that is good and bad. Yes it’s great to have the freedom to design a programme from scratch, but it’s also a huge responsibility and there isn’t the structure or resources to fall back on.
Much as everyone on here moans about Ultilearn, classifications, PTS at least there is something to base it all on and some (imperfect) materials.
I don’t think I was allowed to be Duty person overnight when I was a CI, simply because I was a CI. I would have been happy to do it though.
Overall, my main gripe is the tax coupled with the lack of pension and the speed in which it takes to come through. I’m grateful for it though and it certainly helps me justify the time I do spend on it. I do however think it needs greater clarity in my wing at least around when to claim as I feel a bit awkward asking but equally, I don’t want to miss out if everyone else is getting it. At OTC we had to physically sign the paysheet each evening and that was much better, even when JPA was also slow.
I am still waiting on expenses from about 2 yrs ago now though. That is annoying but different from VA.
I quite agree that a Sqn Ldr attending a course as a student, receiving more in VA than the Sgt who is training them is a silly situation.
Just as a Wg Cdr “visiting” the course to see what goes on would be on over £100 per day.
We’re lucky that we can claim VA as a student at all. As I mentioned earlier, in the SCC students on courses can claim nothing.