If a person is appointed as the wings child protection officer what rank would this be?
ACP 20 states “Wg Child Protection Advisor of any rank”
Does this mean
a), they remain at their currant rank?
b).they are promoted to Sqn Ldr?
Thoughts?
It’s a secondary duty, I’d expect them to remain at their current rank.
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for that role you should be choosing the best person available to you regardless of rank.
Everyone should know that they should be listening to that person as they have the role and knowledge.
That said with some peoples obsession with their rank a Sqn Ldr tank could be of use at times to get the point over
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If they couldn’t get the point over as a CI would being a squadron leader make it any easier, I suspect not.
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Something I wholeheartedly disagree with!!!
It’s one of those roles which requires a careful balancing act - it can have quiet moments, but it can also be quiet full on with multiple cases across multiple squadrons - sometimes across multiple local authority areas.
It demands flexibility, currency and a whole heap of listening skills. And really shouldn’t be something somebody tries to squeeze in alongside running a sqn, be a training officer or another duty elsewhere in the wing.
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Should be a secondary role for an officer on a unit where they are not holding an executive role so they are not tied down to that unit and can be where they are need as and when. The issue is when they are CO/Adj/TrgOf etc and they are part of the plate spinning process
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Hanckering over a promotion?
Or disagree with someone else’s?
The rules are quite clear. ‘Of any rank’.
Therefore allows any person who is most suitable regardless of rank to be in the role.
Therefore a CI or Wg Cdr could do it. Just allows for the most suitable.
This really GMG. The obsession of junior officers in obtaining Sqn Ldr at any cost.
Just do your ‘jobs’ people.
Unless you’ve got a member of staff who does the same thing for a day job.
Our Wing has a Sqn OC who, in his day job, is a child protection officer for a council, so it makes sense to use his professional expertise.
(But fully appreciate these cases are rare)
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Surely as it’s a rank ranging post it allows for the candidate to be of any rank? So if they are a CI they would remain a CI unless they follow process to take up a uniformed CFAV position.
If they are already a uniformed CFAV then they can hold any rank within the allowed structure and guidelines.
Some wings have CPA as a primary posting and as such it could be absolutely acceptable to be promoted once appointed, I guess it depends on the individual situation to some extent.
Ultimately they could retain current rank or they could be promoted…
Dangerously close to straying off topic, but If feel this is almost the case with any secondary (Wing) role. Unless something like aviation officer, where the role is simply assigning flying/gliding slots across the Wing most roles would expect someone to make visits to units across the Wing. Radio and first aid officer are two examples, where either training on unit could be provided or simply visiting to talk through questions on a subject and is best done on a Parade night. If that takes the individual away from their “home” Squadron then they are losing out a key member of Staff , perhaps only for one night that week, but it could be one night a week every other week as they visit each Squadron.
There is then the Wing provided training opportunities. In these secondary roles it takes the CFAV away from supporting “home” Squadron events by completing their obligation to support/provide X number of Wing courses. this maybe at the detriment to the “home” Squadron – perhaps not by clashing dates, but by availability, shift work only allow limited free weekends or family commitments not allowing every weekend in the month to be out wearing the blue suit.
I once had a “secondary” role for the Wing, although not officially appointed or recognised as such, I was a key player in making the Wing monthly shooting weekends occur. I could do this easily on top of committing to the Squadron events when single, but when that changed I had to choose between the Squadron event at the beginning of the month, or Wing event in the middle, as it wasn’t fair to be doing my hobby all the time. Unless you have a very forgiving/understanding partner I believe it would be difficult to have both an “executive” role (for want of a better phrase) on Squadron and a Secondary Wing role adequately/well
Makes sense to use the skills, but you have to be very careful about conflict of interest. I’ve known Police Officers holding the role who have experience in that area at work. All well and good until the independent expert you have to go to is yourself!
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Bob, there are that many idiots who think as an officer their opinion is better than all others.
Hence my point of being a Sqn Ldr.
It shouldn’t happen like that and any idiot who acts like that should be dealt with quickly and clearly but we all know that’s not going to happen
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I edited that to make it relevant to my experience!
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TBH rank is by and large irrelevant to be people being able to do the job.
The problem we have is the archaic and anachronistic military system of certain jobs having a certain rank attached to it.
Why we have this nonsense in the Air Cadets is a continuing mystery.
As per the OP, frankly something like Wg CPO needs to be someone who does it or something closely related for a day job, not the usual someone who can’t or doesn’t want to be on a squadron anymore, doing the jobbing round at Wing, “this week I will mostly being Wg CPO and next week I will be whatever job is on offer”. As an organisation we suffer from having people wanting to be on Wing or doing a Wing job for no other reason than they feel it makes them more important, not because they actually bring or offer anything.
I’m about to step down as an OC and (try to) develop a new Wing role as I am a subject expert on that role. It’s because I realised I wasn’t massively suited to the OC role I have, being a lot about admin and paper pushing that isn’t using my experience much at all. Personal circumstances mean there is no way I could do both, that’s for sure.
I’m a Fg Off, and have no illusions that’s where I will now stay for at least the forseeable future, as not being an OC will rule me out of a Flt Lt promotion when the time comes. I am being kept on the books as a squadron officer (another unit, so the new OC doesn’t have me over the shoulder) as I have to be somewhere.
However, I hope that one day I’ll be considered for that promotion on merit, with somebody arguing my case as a justified exception. That’s the way it should be - taking on a key role in the wing shouldn’t immediately confer a magic rank, but for sure it should be usable as justification and evidence for promotion as equivalent to other experience if and when you do a good job.
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Any rank at all i.e. CI to Officer.
Ahhhh, the old German SS system, didn’t matter what your rank was but your appointed role. Lowest ranked officer could be the highest level of of authority. Or in the old armed forces idea NCO to Officer, don’t confuse your rank with my authority…Sir.
Can I be Frank…Always liked that name 
Anywhooos, personally I just see faces and know names. Regardless if you come rocking up to my Sqn in uniform or not, you get spoken to like I’d speak to any other human on this earth. You can play dress up and enjoy being saluted and called Sir Or Ma’am but you are no different to me as a person apart from your life experiences which will/may differ to mine! We are all here (I Hope) in this Organisation for one thing…maybe two if you have a busy house and need to get away from the family but the main reason I joined is to give back the learning experiences I enjoyed as a Cadet that my staff team back in the day offered us when there wasn’t all this admin and paper work. I want to get the Cadets out and about when there is no Sports weekends doing Sqn based activities.
I treat my Cadets the same as I was treated and I know they respect me and listen when they need to, and I also know they can come to me and talk about anything including problems they may be having with other Cadets. Some Cadets feel small when they have to speak to uniformed staff, they get nervous…Do I salute, call them Sir or Ma’am…they look busy their office so I wont bother them were I’m often sat at a desk busy struggling to get registers on with our crappy wifi and cadets will stop me and ask where something is or they are not happy with certain Cadets playing silly buggers… Cadets before paperwork from me as I can do all that stuff from home/work and I will never tell a Cadet to come back later.
So if you are in a specific role, regardless if you were a CI or in Uniform, I would hope to learn something from you. And you will always get my fullest attention as you would with my crowd of Cadets…So as long as you were Human and knew what you were talking about then that’s all that matters.
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in that case, I am very much NOT in it for the same reason as you
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