Originally Posted by
Asturias56
"Once that's done, he can come back with a more realistic assessment of just how "bad" the figure he quotes actually is"
Like it or not people associate Admirals with commanding fleets and Wing Commanders with commanding Wings of Aircraft
They also notice the numbers of these eminent people don't seem to fall when the actual front line numbers of people and kit does (as with the bishops)
Perhaps we should change their titles to reflect what they do???
Indeed. The civil service used to have a concept of 'limited opportunity' posts. It recognised that certain posts required the authority to, for example, task others or be seen to be a 'customer' to industry; but otherwise the majority of the work could be done by a junior clerk. Spares Ranging and Scaling was always the obvious example on the engineering side; albeit a few grades below Group Captain. They could not be promoted until they'd moved sideways and achieved two good annual reports in a post in which the Job Description could be reconciled with the Grade Description. (Rigorously applying the Grade Descriptions would save a fortune, as there'd be very few promotions allowed!) I can think of a number of (un)suitable Group Captains I came across. But the vast majority were excellent.