To say we’re not employees when we have to do more in terms compulsory training in the Corps, than I ever have at work was always an interesting standpoint on HQAC’s behalf.
All we should have to do is the CP training and update, as this seems to standard among people working with children.
After that it should be down to the individual what they do. Make too many things compulsory or as a requirement to do other things, it starts to look like employment. A minimum attendance (12 hrs) is like contracted hours, not that they really pursue it, but if people who they want to get rid of don’t, they have been hauled over the coals as they haven’t been doing it with a you must or leave/resign. People I know queried over it have done just that and left, but then that’s standard for personnel management in the ATC.
Make us proper volunteers with only basic expenses claimable all through the CWC and give them a grant to manage each year to cover this. This would be fraction of the spend on VA. This would lose the “hold” that can be inferred through getting VA for something. In this I would include paying for courses through external suppliers.
Some may say people won’t do things as they aren’t getting “paid”, but they would and they would be the ones who want to do it. We could then attend external courses rather than relying on Corps run courses, which are never when you want them and or get cancelled at the last minute. Given we work all manner of different hours having courses just at the weekend aren’t always convenient.
When you look at the scope for VoV, they talk about reducing training load, but I doubt they will.
An interesting post given your previous inclinations against the ‘machine vs. us downtrodden volunteers’.
Scrapping of pay will result in less activities taking place. The reason is because some people take unpaid leave from work off-setting the loss against the RAFAC Pay.
Additionally, a lot of people use Pay as a mechanism to buy items which should be GFE, but are not - i.e. Smocks for shooting on ranges, Webbing, the pittance paid for mileage in personal cars etc…
i think everyone here knows that, however the problem isn’t what we think, its what others think.
there is, imv/ime, a genuinely held belief in some circles - and i’ve seen written evidence of it in HQAC internal correspondence - that they think they are doing us a favour by letting us give up our weeknights and weekends to look after other peoples children.
you know that chasm-like disconnect i’m always banging on about? well this is pretty much at the root of it.
the obvious outcome of the above attitude is that when you do someone a favour, you tend not to pay them as well.
I won’t deny that that getting ‘paid’ helps, but is not the motivation. I do far more during the year that does not attract “pay” than does, whereas I know many who only do things that they get ‘paid’ for. We should remember that we are very lucky to get ‘paid’ for doing things, when the majority of the youth organisation ‘helpers’ do not get a penny and they still do it.
As for using “pay” to buy kit, what about the 1000s of CIs who are vey active and buy or scrounge things to do things? How many uniformed staff actually buy kit and don’t scrounge it as and when they can?
If I’m honest there is now a real chance to change the individual CF into something that is a coherent organisation, that can provide the “cadet experience” as a single organisation rather than 3 doing their own thing, but with a huge chunk of the same. The MOD isn’t in crisis, but afaic cannot properly support the ATC or ACF if speaking to my compatriots in the local ACF, they have said they have seen changes and not for the better in recent years.
Picture the old 3 circles overlapping much loved when doing leadership theory. That’s what the cadet forces looks like.
I don’t do it to get “paid”, but when it’s removed (as it inevitably will be) I will no longer be OC. That is the only real benefit to being an OC. I can do everything else that I do now as a CI or sqn officer. Controversial I know, but honest.
(And yes I do more than only the things I can be paid for now. And I work my socks off for it thank you very much).
Again, also agree. I take enough time off work to ensure that cadets don’t miss out on things - everything from teaching to courses, camps and taking them flying etc…
The pay helps offset my loss of earnings for that particular period (and only covers about 60% so I still operate at a loss…)
It helps pay for things for cadets, that either I or the sqn needs.
If the pay stops then I’ll have a serious reduction on activities outside of the Sqn - particularly overnights… I’m pretty sure the majority of the uniform staff who claim VA are the same.
But what about those people in organisations that don’t pay their volunteer helpers?
What about the CIs in the ATC? They give their time, often more than their uniformed counterparts, and get no financial remuneration, beyond expenses and fuel. With this in mind I don’t understand why people would do less, because they won’t get paid. As a CI I did camps, courses and many weekends and got fuel money only. But that more than covered my costs at the time.
It would seem that because people are paid, means they do more things taking more of their time up. May be less would be more.
Teflon, like me I did the same HOWEVER…
the rate of CIs going to camps (week long or weekend) now is negligible in our wing, only a few CIs who are wanting to go into uniform are going, there are about 3 CIs who go like we did but they are retired and its a wee holiday for them…
Sad it maybe, but people need to make decisions and the VA is helping uniform staff to attend activities, don’t get me wrong I know a few that IMO abuse it slightly but its still with in the rules
as a general rule, they either do less than the standard ACO OC, or their interactions with their parent organisations are less baleful.
theres also no such thing as Scout, or WI, or, MRT prison - you either do it to your mutual satisfaction or you walk away - while Courts Martial for ACO uniformed staff are somewhat thin on the ground, being a member of an organisation with its own legal system, and the (theoretical) power to enforce it, gets points on the embuggerance scale that being a Scout Leader simply doesn’t attract.
as a CI i don’t get paid even when standing on a wet hill next to someone who does - thats fine, i’m in the very fortunate position of being able to afford to do weekends and the odd weekday etc… without being paid - however i can think of a couple of former CI’s who have gone into uniform simply because they could not afford to be active, really involved members of the ACO without being paid for taking the time off work that being an active, really involved member of ACO staff requires.
camps are a different story - as many of you know i’m a sheep and beef farmer, for me to do a 7 day camp would cost me about £600 in contracted-in labour to run the farm. it would also mean that my wife - a primary school teacher and supply teacher - would have to give up supply work for that week and fiddle her duties at school. while i’m on the farm i can pick up the kids from school, give them tea, etc… but if i’m away, the bloke i get in to run the farm isn’t going to do that. thats another £2-300 out of the weekly budget…
so, with annual camp being crap, hard work, and costing us about £900 for the week, it will surprise no one that i am unable to take up the kind offer at this time.
If you read my post, I wouldn’t stop volunteering but I would stop doing all the crap i have to as OC.
I’d still be a CI and volunteer my time for free. But I wouldn’t do the management, H&S, admin, maintenance, grant applications, discipline, uniform, that is expected as an officer.
If the VA is cut, I’d expect my work load to be cut also - and we all know it won’t! Being able to claim Flt Lt level VA helps offset the piles of crud we OCs have to deal with.
If a flat rate is introduced, or if it’s removed altogether, then what’s the incentive to pucker up and just crack on with piles of useless admin?
I may as well stand down, get involved with the activities I enjoy, and let HQAC work out who will be responsible for doing the myriad of crappy jobs we seem to have inherited.
This is fine if we got paid for parade nights in some way, but we don’t.
A flat rate wouldn’t really work in practice for command reasons. At the moment the most senior on the activity is regarded as the de facto fall guy, so a flat rate would provide some interesting avoidance tactics. I’ve always wondered who is actually responsible, given that for say shooting the shooting bod does all the paperwork, yet the OC has to tick the box and submit for approval, which would suggest the OC has a degree of liability. For SMS activities why can’t the person raising the activity submit it and the OC just gets an email saying x put y for approval on z date. Take recently the adj has raised all the PIPES for Wings, BoB and Poppy and Remembrance, but I’ve had to log in and tick a box, when I don’t really have any need to.
HQAC don’t, can’t and wouldn’t give a flying fig as they have no part in the decision. Wing just find someone they can arm twist or play some other tune to coerce them into the role regardless of whether they want to or not.
I know the VA doesn’t really have anything to do with what we do on a parade night, but my reasononing is thus:
Being able to claim a slightly higher rate of pay on an activity is HQAC way of saying: “thanks for running a Sqn. We know you deal with a mountain of self imposed guff during parade nights, so when you go away for a camp, we will reward you with a bit more money than the others.”
That may or may not be the reasoning behind the current system. Either way, if a flat rate is introduced, or pay dropped altogether, then we lose one of the incentives to run a sqn (And as far as I can tell, the only incentive to attend the squadron commanders course at Cranwell!).
The flat rate was something that was mentioned at a squadron commanders meeting. The concept being that activity staff* would all get an equal pay rate**, as their levels of responsibility are the same, with the activity commander getting a slightly higher rate to reflect the extra responsibility they hold.
The OC box on the Bader Activity is about making sure that the activity has the the sanction of the Chain of Command.
While I might not mind my shooting officer opening up and running a range without asking me, I’d be more than a big miffed if my DofE Officer was putting in an application to go to Snowdonia without running it by me!
An extra trip to the range on a non-parade night wouldn’t make a jot of difference to the training programme and could in theory be organised on the day.
A trip to Snowdonia would require preparation and planning nights and would make a big difference to the Squadron’s running. I would expect to be consulted on any “overnight activity” if I’m perfectly honest. I’m unlikely to say no, but I do like to be aware of what’s happening on my unit as individual staff may not be aware of the bigger picture.
[quote=“Moist_Van_Lipwig, post:16, topic:3382, full:true”]I know the VA doesn’t really have anything to do with what we do on a parade night, but my reasononing is thus:
Being able to claim a slightly higher rate of pay on an activity is HQAC way of saying: “thanks for running a Sqn. We know you deal with a mountain of self imposed guff during parade nights, so when you go away for a camp, we will reward you with a bit more money than the others.”
That may or may not be the reasoning behind the current system. Either way, if a flat rate is introduced, or pay dropped altogether, then we lose one of the incentives to run a sqn (And as far as I can tell, the only incentive to attend the squadron commanders course at Cranwell!).
The flat rate was something that was mentioned at a squadron commanders meeting. The concept being that activity staff* would all get an equal pay rate**, as their levels of responsibility are the same, with the activity commander getting a slightly higher rate to reflect the extra responsibility they hold. [/quote]
The system is purely based on rank and nothing whatsoever to do with what you do or don’t do off squadron. As for thanks, in all my 30+ years as staff I’ve never heard HQAC say thank you and here’s something for your trouble, you get the occasional “young Mr Grace”. What is more likely to happen is get more and more dumped on us and questions if it doesn’t happen.
The flat rate as described would involve a lot of willy waving and high watery marks on the wall (or whatever the female version is, other than teddy throw and sulk) and then go to those with favoured status.