A different take on the number of Air Officers; is it mandated anywhere that we have to have a certain ratio of Air Officers to squadrons/officers/ORs/aircraft?
They key thing should be whether or not these Air Officers are gainfully employed. After all, as the RAF gets smaller we might need less AOCs at the head of less Groups, but the number of MoD/exchange/NATO posts don't decrease.
As long as there's a job that requires the experience of a 1 star or 2 star, why should we be complaining that we're putting someone appropriate into it? We can't very well take a rotating NATO post that other nations allocate a 2 star to and give it to a Sqn Ldr to save money.