The biggest failing of the officer promotion system is that individuals get promoted regardless of whether a job is available for them. Hence you (used to?) get the daft situation of individuals being promoted to wg cdr half way through staff college. Why not run the board, release the list and then promote when a job requiring an individual becomes available (which is, I believe, how the Navy and Army lists work). That way seniority actually means something - the date you put the rank up reflects the date you actually start the job and also gets rid of the 'overanked' posts where people have too much rank for the post they are filling. It also stops individuals being forced into a job that they clearly don't have the 'skill sets' for just because it needs a person of their rank. And please tell me the ruling of three years as acting and you automatically got substantive is no longer in force.....
And whilst I'm putting the world to rights why not introduce an 'up or out' policy (as I believe the USAF have). Stop all the 'bed blockers' who are bouncing between departments in Air Command as a 10+ year seniority sqn ldr or wg cdr (with no desire to go any further or to return to the front line) just to keep the educational allowance (and I know this will reopen the flying pay / reserve band / loss of flying pay discussion but we haven't had that argument on PPRuNe for at least a few weeks
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A bit of thread drift I fear - apologies!