Severn Trent just hit the news for increasing its dividend payout…
increase over what period?
is that 12 months or 12 years?
It’s over the next 5 years, so the FY 2025-2030 period.
@Giminion - as well as dividend payouts, they give millions away to charities too (we’ve had tens of thousands off them this year). Not necessarily a bad thing, but some context to align with increasing bills.
To get tax relief. How very generous of them.
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How many pension companies have investors money in the water companies to pay private sector employees pensions?
That is a crucial point that many “nationalise 'em now” campaigners forget.
The other crucial point is to look at the overall value of each company (+ any debt - Southern Water had some £5 billion debt last year) & then total up the cost; last time I checked, Thames Water alone was about £29 billion…
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It’s not always missed, but there’s no reason a state-owned company couldn’t be a pensions and investment option.
But growing profits and increasing dividends are currently coming at the cost of rising bills and reducing quality.
Pointing at the positives of utility and public services companies such as pensions and charitable funds is plastering over the negatives to distract from the billions that are being extracted into private pockets while users suffer poor outcomes.
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SW Region has extended its “don’t have fun” policy from the end of June to indefinitely. No work that needs any paid staff involvement can now happen at all until someone, somewhere, decides it to be so. Given we’ve had this stop for a 1/4 of a year so far, it’s quite impressive that they’re rivalling the great aviation pause with an “all activity pause”.
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What’s the actual wording / reasoning given?
Initially it was because of the restructure and getting that up and running. That then got pushed back and back to the end of June. Now it’s because apparently we don’t have the staff, although that isn’t actually said it’s inferred that because the regional CoS is leaving they don’t have the resource. But then the restructure was designed to mean we could do the same things with a different resourcing, evidently that’s not true.
They need to pull some staff from HQ to sort this mess out. You’ve only lost a small handful of staff compared to the dozens that are within HQ. Why is a whole region, 1/6th of the organisation suffering so hard. Surely we can ‘balance’ the workload a bit better?!
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Youve made a few massive assumptions there…
- Old Tone gives a damn… hes banging out anyway.
- Anyone anywhere within RAFAC CS has a clue.
- That this isnt part of ‘Op Diminish’ a strategic plan to reduce the footprint and risk of the RAFAC.
I will defend RAFAC CS in one thing.
The lack of permenant staff availability is not wholly the fault of RAFAC HQ. From what I am hearing there is a significant amount of gapping all over the country in all positions from wing hq clerical staff through to senior CS positions at HQ RAFAC. The MOD CS is now a year into a Whitehall imposed Civil Service Hiring Freeze. Natural wastage means that there is a significant amount of posts gapped. I have heard of 2 wings that supposedly have not a single traditional E1/E2 & WEXO post filled.
The Permenant staff that left are it seems sometime now having to do 3 or 4 jobs with no overtime available due to budget cuts and no hope of filling those vacant posts. That is the fault of the Government’s Civil Service Recruitment freeze not HQ RAFAC or even the RAF. 1 person doing 3 or 4 jobs leads to burn out and them leaving for a different job meaning more vacancies which means the longer this CS hiring freeze goes on the worse things are going to get.
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I get all of that. But how is it at all fair or reasonable for 1 whole region to be told they essentially can’t do any non-parade night stuff, when the other 5 regions are cracking on fine*. The screams poor staff management to me.
*fine being what is allowed ignoring all the other nonsense.
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@JoeBloggs some of those regions will be barely managing to keep their own regions head above water due to gaps in their regional & associated wings establishment. If that’s the case where are they expected to find staff time to support another? Overtime? (none available due to no budget)
Now if there was a region that was fully staffed in every post and had time to spare then you might have an argument but from what I’m hearing that is not the case anywhere. Generic RAFAC CS (not specific specialists ie HQ RAFAC safeguarding team) have been hammered in numbers since the freeze. The amount of people that are leaving and not being replaced is now starting to bite & bite hard (unfortunately harder in some areas than others).
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For starters, HQ has ‘paused’ many large scale events and activities this year, which should have saved significant perm staff time. That should have helped with the gapping that is now occurring. But that’s sort of irrelevant.
We have 6 regions. 1 of which is basically dead in the water right now, with 5 other seemingly doing okay. You’re right in that they may barely be managing to keep their heads above the water. But South West appears to have already sunk to the bottom and has no way to come back up. That really is not okay. Are we just willing to kill off the RAFAC within a 6th of the country? As it appears to be quickly heading that way if we’re not careful.
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Let’s ignore CS as a general group then.
We’ve got FTRS telling volunteers not to do what they volunteered for.
They are stopping activities required for competency and currency assurance. Authorisations will lapse.
They are doing this during what should be peak season, the part of the year that everyone tolerates the rest of it to reach.
They are preventing opportunities that would attract remuneration during a time when it has already been announced that the amount available is restricted. “You can still do non VA / no mileage available activities” - for many, the few that can be claimed balance out those that can’t.
They are actively preventing the organisation from achieving its goals.
They are removing opportunities from young people.
They are failing to provide the skills, training, and experience that cadets joined and/or stayed for (what few are left from other sources of decline).
Worse than “joined for”, what they PAY for.
If this does continue into the summer holidays, it could restrict social contact in what might otherwise be a solitary experience. Time away from a house they don’t want to be in. Time away from people they don’t want to be with. Moments of joy and pride over misery.
All of this amongst and in addition to an atmosphere of national pain and reductions as @JoeBloggs says above.
This decision, if upheld for an extended period of time without alternative or resolution, is a failure of leadership, and of stewardship of the organisation/AOR.
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Should they have announced such a policy change during purdah?
Of the staff who have left, how many hours did they work, and what are the whole time equivalents?
Have the ACF got the same problems, or is it just that the RAFAC is so poor to work for that the staff have left or transferred to other posts in the CS?
Is the ACF still able to carry out its objectives as a uniformed youth organisation/