sooms
I think it would take a brave man to stick his head up and, even in 2006, effectively challenge the establishment, although I would bet that he/she would get surreptitious support from 'a few good men' who have made it to the Stars, seen the need, but not wanted to risk their careers.
I've said before that if the Service is clever they could influence the way a Federation is formed, rather than just put up with something that is one day inevitable. With vision (there's some bait) the command chain could positively benefit from a two-way communications structure that could avoid embarrassing newspaper articles and bypass career-obsessed middle managers who fear for their futures were they to report bad news. I can't help thinking some 'stretched and deficiency' new stories are actually welcomed at times by the hierarchy as I doubt they have a great deal of two-way debate with the cabinet.
No matter how we look at the need, we can do business better - our people are being treated consistently badly, be it domestically in the state of Public accommodation, or professionally with ill-conceived fads like IiP et al. We're also locked in an eternal battle of change for the sake of change where some see any change as a qualification for promotion, paying scant regard to longer-term harm after they have gone - we have to arrest that trend! If nothing else a federation could improve communication both ways rather than misunderstanding the issue with U Need 2 Know - I want to know about real issues affecting ME, not read propaganda about helicopter ops at Boscastle. UN2K quickly turned into just another means to transmit RAF News-type stories, losing readership and thus the initiative.
Most command decisions are, I believe, extensively thought out but its clear from the cross-topic posts on Pprune that an intelligent audience is being starved of anything except 'you will now all do A because we say so'. In fact Pprune has been my primary - certainly most consistent, timely and accurate - source of intra-service information for a few years now! We must market ourselves internally too and not just spend with gay abandon on short-term external recruitment programmes that will leave those who fall for it wondering what they've been sold. Today's recruits may initially be fooled, but the magic won't last and they won't stay.
Much as it is easy to criticise 'them', the RAF(TM!) is still made up of a majority of talented individuals who, no matter their misgivings, are keen to get the mission done. But extraneous nonsense is not the mission. Unless we radically assess our organisation as a whole - almost go back to Year One and restructure with the end product the main focus - our primary role will remain 50% harder than it necessarily needs to be. Peripheral activities, introduced by those with vested interests, must not be allowed flourish at the cost of manpower and resources diverted from air operations. When I go - and I'm convinced I have to now - I'll miss the people and their enthusiasm, including the oft-maligned yoof, but worry for their futures.
A federation can say things like this - capture the intangible mood on the streets of our bases - and report back so policy can be developed consultatively when situations allow, reducing the number of occasions that command's well-conceived ideas result in just another session of eye-rolling in workplaces across the UK.
Last edited by FOMere2eternity; 27th Jan 2006 at 08:42.