Ok so new thought. What happens for other organisations, anyone know? How do scouts or guides do activities, do they have an equivalent of the JCCC?
No idea, but probably under less government scrutiny than the cadet forces and arguably exposed to lesser risk in some circumstances.
Possibly under less government scrutiny but I disagree about the risk. They take younger kids so you could say some of the risks are higher. Taking 8 people canoeing is taking 8 people canoeing regardless of organisation. The difference is that they take younger people too, and we operate under the MOD rules.
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Ok so I took my cub pack out for an activities day not too long ago.
We have a âIn Touchâ system: aka next of kin contact details,
and a designated âhome contactâ to be an intermediate with parents.
other than that we get the ok from our district commissioner (aka wing staff officer for the district) to be off site and weâre done.
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Thatâs a good point which I wonât disagree with. I was thinking about reputational risk as well as the cadet forces at intrinsically linked to MoD and armed forces. But physical risk is broadly the same.
Depends on (a) how lomg it takes to get approved and (b) whether theyâll let you submit it without cadets listed
One of the issues with it being for JCCC is that the PIPE on the day isnât neccesarily a true reflection of who is or isnât on the activity. It will list everyone expected to attend but that doesnât mean they turned up on the day or that others havenât been drafted in as last minute replacements. So for the passing of âSympathy Messagesâ (as we now professionally call a death message) itâs not actually that great on the day. In fact based on my experience I doubt it would even be involved until well after any such tragedy had already been dealt with by the Civilian Authorities.
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Yes - this! Lots of wings have local systems for bidding for camp places etc. which seems like a duplication of effort.
Activity ICs should be able to select from the following options when creating an activity:
- All invited units can change personnel
- All invited units can nominate personnel for approval by IC activity
- Only the activity IC can change personnel
Iâm fully aware of them but as I say why? And it seems others are similarly curious, although no beration. I do wonder how we as an organisation managed before this and didnât crumble into a heap.
OK they tell people something has happened, but why canât this be something HQAC or Wing do, after all they have the information? As for being contacted for NOK etc in an emergency not a problem.
However getting to the point about how correct the information is :
someoneâs down to go on something but donât and then something happens, in the confusion it all kicks in the seat warmers use the list they have and make a phone call (Iâd sooner have a copper knock on the door) to their NOK. Imagine the fall out. Hence the need to have an organic system. However all information on SMS/Bader is only as correct as to what people tell you.
If this happened guess whose fault it would be ⌠as the slopey shouldered suits would be donned.
You get stick because you wade in all the time with Rubbish.
It came about because the JCCC work 24/7 and wings /regions donât, it often requires a coordinated response and there was some backlash following some very serious incidents when the RAF said, dunno about it or who to contact - the cadets do their own thing. Donât forget, cadets go worldwide, the JCCC operate with the Foreign Office and insurance providers on matters which one might find very difficult in other circumstances.
Why would the RAF need to know anyway and why would they be contacted? I never and still donât really see the need for anyone else to get involved and I am sure they are busy enough with real armed force personnel, going here there and everywhere.
Everything we do should just go through HQAC.
When our kids went all over the world on school trips (Europe, US and Africa), everything got handed by the school which worked well when things didnât go right and apparently now they text / email parents. Which works as well as when our kids were there.
Because the JCCC (Joint, not RAF) is a professional, experienced and integrated function who will do a hugely better job of coordination response, compassionate transport and kinforming that a disparate group of amateur numpties would do so. This is not an area where we wish to skimp and bumble through so we should be grateful that we have access to a professional service. If that means they get access to our systems then so be it, but it does mean the information we provide needs to be accurate or come with a huge caveat that it is only approximate.
The decision to engage JCCC has been taken by MOD so we may well be stuck with it and that could steer the discussion. It makes sense for our larger activities bu the broad-brush approach may (as usual) not always be the best option for every SMS activity. It makes sense for camps, overseas trips and so on, not so much for local PR events or high street collections.
I would also like them to consider further integration with MOD security people in regards the the PME forms I am now expected to generate, flagging our public involvement and coordinating with police forces to ensure there are no security issues with an activity (I know!). This is an almost complete duplication of the existing SMS activity on a crappy paper form just to warn civpol of a âmilitary eventâ on their patch.
I canât understand why anyone would suggest that JCCC cover/access/support is a bad thing.
I donât fulfil any of the roles for the PIPE Working group so havinât put myself forward, however we need to ignore what we have currently and look at the organisation needs.
RAFAC needs JCCC oversight - mandated by the MoD and therefore out of our control
Therefore the SMS system needs to contain anything given as an answer to these questions;
- What information do JCCC need to be available to them?
- What approval level do RAFAC need?
- What does the approver need visibility off to make an informed decision?
We can then ask what additional information would be nice to have with these questions;
- What information would JCCC like to be available?
- What does the RAFAC like to know for additional reporting?
- What does the approver like visibility off to make an informed decision?
We can then ask, does adding the likes make the process un-necessarily awkward or time consuming for a volunteer to complete?
There is no point in having optional elements, as they wonât be completed if they are not needed.
Once what is needed is decided, we just need a policy document that details the process for all users, from creating the event, to guidance for the approver.
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The question, what did we do before, is relevant.
The âamateur numptiesâ is massively insulting to people who run similar things in similar organisations who donât have the âbenefitâ we do of washing our hands of problems.
As you say it was decided by the MoD that we desperately needed this and now we are stuck with it. But again there only contact with people will be based on lists etc that may not be right.
It could easily be seen as a bad thing if it brings with it a lot of baggage that is disproportionate to the advantage in the majority of situations. I fully suspect that it has been âmandatedâ by somebody who did not fully appreciate the true impact of requiring it unconditionally, or who didnât care because they work in an environment where full-time employees readily bend to their will.
The scope of JCCC involvement could tolerate scrutiny and the policy is worth reviewing or amending. It is not currently fit for purpose and could cause a severe, negative impact if it was enforced.
Rather than asking how we ensure that JCCC is always fully involved, we should ask how we can ensure we operate at a level where we can work without JCCC for local and low-risk activities (leaving them with mass, out-of-area, camp-like activities) whilst still being able to engage them effectively IF NEEDED.
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If JCCC need no knowledge of local activities, it reduces the requirements for a PIPE, they might argue that they do need knowledge of shooting/FT/AT along with camps UK & Overseas due to their being a high level of risk.
I canât imagine the information they need is high, just a nominal roll and access to NoK details, which we would have regardless.
No guarantee either are accurate though.
Keeping accurate, detailed nominal rolls (which can change throughout an event) is key and is relevant to the discussion. This can be complicated if the same lists are used for recording historic involvement, eligibility for pay and for emergency response. People can come and go at different dates/times for many legitimate reasons and that would all need to be tracked properly. This is entirely possible but I can see it requiring more complex coding.
Keeping SMS personnel records accurate is also key, but a matter for another time!
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Exactly this, at the moment we have an overly complicated system at the behest of someone else which wouldnât in a huge number of cases provide them with accurate information anyway.
This is probably why we have the administrative systems we have, because some administrator from (in our case the RAF) joins the ATC and we just get cross over into the Cadet Forces because are supposedly military and therefore do what they do and its what the people coming to the ATC know and not having the ability to think of anything else just copy it across.
JSP 814 - The Cadet Forces Manual talks about the JCCC and applications to do activities. Chapter 15 talks about planning cadet training and chapter 16 talks about safety and the JCCC. Below is an extract from Chapter 16.
"16.4 Planning of Training and Activities
16.4.1. CF training and activities are to be planned, prepared and communicated to
those taking part, with special attention to the safety aspects and risk assessment as
described below.
16.4.2. Details of any Cadet activities that take place away from the Unit are to be
entered onto the appropriate Management Information System along with a nominal roll
and other supporting information. This is required so that, in case of a serious incident or
accident, JCCC can access the required information automatically and without delay."
So JCCC do want us to record all off squadron activities on SMS, but it doesnât mention approval for activities in Chapter 15 or 16, apart from shooting and AT which have their own sections.
Chapter 16 talks about safety and that all activities should be properly planned and supervised but states it is up to individual cadet HQs to decide how this is assured.