Specialist Pay - Flying, Para, Sub etc etc

[Roland Pulfrew]

Ladies and Gents of the RAF, RN, Army, RM

Just picked up a leaflet from JPA lying around in the Mess titled "Changes to Pay and Charges for Service Personnel in the JPA Era". Anyone else seen it? Anyone spot the small bombshell, perhaps a tactical nuke would be a better description, on Specialist Pay?

I quote:

"Common Rules for SP will rationalise your entitlement, if you have one. Your SP will be paid in one of 3 ways:

Continuous Career Basis - paid at full rate when you are in role, with a system of Reserve Bands at reducing rates (3 years at full rate, then one year at 75%, one year at 50% and a final year at 25% of full rates) when you are out of role."

So then, no flying, no flying pay! Is that a change to terms and conditions? What will your poster/appointer do if he offers you 2 gnd tours and you refuse on the basis it will hit you financially to accept a further gnd tour? Is this legal? Surely if you have served for XX years and recieved this pay for XX years then your expectations under the Eu Human Rights Act are that this pay forms a (not insignificant) element of your total pay and to reduce it in this way infringes your exectations/rights? Any thoughts?

[teeteringhead]

Is this not more-or-less the current system of reserve bands...??

[Mead Pusher]

Woah!

Allow me to rumour squash quickly! JPA has 4 ways of varying basic pay, as follows:

Position Based
Career Continuous
Competency Based
Task Based

Position based would be to get extra pay based on the location (London?).

Career Continuous is paid regardless of post, and this includes flying pay, Para Regt and Submarine.

Competency based is for a qualified individual in a post that uses the qualification, and I think that this is what is being referred to in the document you have quoted.

Task based is for specialist duties that are not post-specific, like AeroMed duties.

I do not believe that flying pay will be affected in the way that you think! Contact your Unit Change Team to make sure, but I have seen nothing to suggest that people will lose flying pay.

Hope this calms the waters!

[SubdiFuge]

"People I know are currently planning large scale exercises with no idea how rates/actuals will be administered.."

If its an exercise why aren't they staying in barracks or in f-ing tents. Any wonder that the Army, Navy and Marines think the RAF are a bunch of workshy clowns who think that staying in a decent hotel is more important than providing a quality service. If half the money spent on Club-class flights and hotac was spent on getting the aircraft configured properly for use on operations, the RAF would at least be able to hold its head high...

[Tourist]

Well said!

[snaggletooth]

Sticks and stones...

In answer to your question it's because they worked hard and did well at school - everything snowballs from there really.

PS Luv da Gangsta Rappa spellin Spud-u-like

[sangiovese.]

You can dig in or you can check in.....your choice

:E

[SubdiFuge]

I'd rather dig in or pitch a tent than be laughed outta town by the Matelots, Booties or Pongoes for failing to provide even a half-decent service because the 30 year old aircraft can't fly on ops because they do not have a DAS or are u/s. A disgrace, that's what the current AT fleet is....

[snaggletooth]

disgrace, that's what the current AT fleet is...

Don't think many would argue there, but perhaps the blame for that lies at the feet of the last few Chancellors, not the chaps and chapesses who make the best of a bad job.

Remember Spud-u-like, it's better to build bridges than barriers.

15 all, your serve

[SubdiFuge]

The treasury isn't to blame, its the fast jet mafia that have sold the AT fleet down the Swany and bought 200-odd Typhoon that won't get used in anger. I hear what you say about the crews, but surely you can understand how it looks to the pax; flying in clapped out aircraft with the crews staying 5* hotac. The grunts just assume that all the dosh is being spent on keeping RAF crews in luxury.

[P-T-Gamekeeper]

The grunts just assume that all the dosh is being spent on keeping RAF crews in luxury.
Been to Basrah recently?

[SubdiFuge]

Actually yes, and to other places that you won't have been to, so wind your neck in.

[snaggletooth]

Of course we can understand how it looks - blooming awful. But please don't vilify the boys and girls who try to make silk purses out of the proverbial. You're in an aircrew forum so should know better than the average punter that their hands are tied re. the a/c. Believe it or not they are consumate professionals and are doing their best with poor resources. And if the JSP says they get HOTAC, they get HOTAC. That's a decision way above our pay scales.

[SubdiFuge]

I thought that accom status was in GASOs and not 550?? Could be wrong though - what do I know about it anyway?

[snaggletooth]

Erm, we don't have GASOs anymore at my POW

What's you favourite filling? Mine's beans and cheese

[SubdiFuge]

Only if there's a dash of HP in it too!:}

[snaggletooth]

Good work fella! Some would say that was gilding the lily but not me.

[LFFC]

SubdiFuge

I think the bottom line is that, during peacetime (and that's what I'm told this is), the civilian Air Navigation Order demands that aircrew are fit to fly whenever they mix with other general aviation. Whatever you might like to think, the airspace over London doesn't magically become any more forgiving to military crews just because they didn't manage to get any decent rest prior to their flight - even if it is from an operational theatre!

Having sat behind a couple of pilots and watched them struggle to stay awake at the end of a long, delayed, over-night flight home, I became acutely aware that maybe it might have been a good idea for them to get some decent sleep the previous day - rather than what passed for rest in a tent! I think their other passengers (and maybe even you) would have agreed too - had they seen what I did, and understood.

I believe that our AT crews are doing an excellent job with tired old equipment, under some pretty s****y conditions. Sorry, but the next time I fly with them, I'd really like to think that I was with a crew that had rested well beforehand - even if it did cost a few bob more.

[theboywide]

How about I wave my magic wand and make all the AT fleet servicable then? Ever wonder why they don't have the right DAS kit or they're u/s - maybe its because were underfunded and overused. I also can't believe that you're begrudging crews who are currently spending 4 months plus a year in Basrah and potentially more this year on detachment a couple of nights in a hotel. And for your info the only people that business class around the world are movers.

[Roland Pulfrew]

Mead, and to get this topic back to its original AOR, (not another let's bash the AT fleet topic) you have not actually answered the question. My quote came from a tri-service leaflet so your

"and I think that this is what is being referred to"

does not really clarify the situation. I quote again (lifted straight from the leaflet)

"Continuous Career Basis - paid at full rate when you are in role, with a system of Reserve Bands at reducing rates (3 years at full rate, then one year at 75%, one year at 50% and a final year at 25% of full rates) when you are out of role."

This to me implies that if you are "out of role" you gradually lose your flying pay. If that is what happens already then I apologise; I am not aware that flying pay reduces at present unless you are medically down graded (or get promoted, but that is unlikely)!

[FFP]

You don't think the AT boys want serviceable aircraft fit for the job ?

It's fair to say that sections of the AT fleet are doing tasks that others wouldn't think about with the aircraft we have. We'll leave it at that shall we ?

As for HOTAC, and specifically for the AT fleet, I don't see what the grunts would want us to do when we take them out to Calgary or the Carribean or Brunei for exercises. For our 16 hrs on the ground, having just crossed 5 or so time zone, would you like us to pitch a tent and sleep on the airfield ?

LFFC made some excellent points. When the weather is crap, and things aren't going to plan, you want those sitting in the front to be rested and on the ball, not suffereing from a lack of rest.

Going to sound snobby, but who cares. There is a reason why some people worked hard at school, and if you don't like the tent you sleep in or the trenches you dig, then take it upon yourself to do something about it, instead of whinging that soemone has a better deal. Not saying it applies to anyone here, but it applies to many in the Services as a whole.

[Unmissable]

Roland ..This to me implies that if you are "out of role" you gradually lose your flying pay. If that is what happens already then I apologise

Yes this is what happens now and has done for some time. A few years ago the first stint was six years, but that has was changed to 3 years long before JPA. What is not explained above is that not all ground tours start the clock runing. If your ground tour is annotated 'flying related' then the clock does not start. However, as staff posts are all being re-defined under the colocated HQ, then less and less are being annotated 'flying related'. (Saves money of course)

I am told that you can always re-start the clock by doing an out of area tour which would count as 'flying related'.

Whether the posters are clever enough to manage (ha ha) our careers so this does not happen remains to be seen.

[tu chan go]

I think this rule is aimed at those hoary old aircrew who have been in the same, non-flying related job for 10 years or more and are actively avoiding doing what they are being paid to do. We all know the type; the last aircraft they saw the inside of is no longer in service. That sort of thing.

The majority of ground jobs that aircrew are sent to ARE flying related. If the poster tries to send someone to a second tour, non-flying job, they need a good kicking and told where to go. If you stay in touch with your own career, it is not too difficult to ensure that this does not happen anyway (as I have found over my 27 years in the RAF). Find the job that you want to do and manoeuvre yourself into it! Always have a backup plan for when it turns to ratsh*t though.

[Mead Pusher]

Roland,

Thanks for that update - sorry for the misunderstanding! I've learnt something today...

What was the reference of that document? I'd be interested in taking a look.

[Roland Pulfrew]

Mead

No document reference, I have just checked, just an MOD/JPA glossy leaflet. JSP 754 is apparently the definitive reference though and as there is little in the way of flying I can do at present I might surf the intranet to see if I can find it.................if I get really bored and run out of other trivial jobs to do!

[PPRuNeUser0211]

Roland, have a look on arrsse or whatever it is, I googled the other day and found a link to it (interestingly, detached and posted jobs cease to exist, being replaced with "temporary" and "permanent" attachements based on the length of time the job is envisaged to last - all you holders out there take note....)