As "experienced" (=older) personnel, we tend to emphasise 'retention' in our analysis of manning issues, because 'retention' measures tend to be aimed at our ilk! What we tend to forget is the old adage that military service is a young man's game. Yes, you need a core of grizzled SNCOs and WOs to keep the raw recruits in line, and yes you need a few (very few) officers of Wg Cdr rank and above to direct the show. However I think that the RAF has quite an 'aged' feel about it compared to the other services; of course we of "experience" (age) justify this by pointing out that we are a technical service where engineering and flying expertise needs to be developed over time. But "experience" (age) comes with wife/husband, children, expectations of stability... and this in an age where spouses are less and less willing to troop dutifully from patch to patch every 2-3 years. So "experienced" personnel have become increasingly difficult to please, and expect a civilian lifestyle - which we encourage with advances of pay for deposits on property, yet which is at odds with the ultimate truth that you go where the Service needs you to go. Just look at recent issues - Tornado drawdown at Lossiemouth = mass stampede to the offshore industry rather than move south. Typhoon drawdown at Leuchars? I hear rumours of threats of mass PVR. Higher authority than the MoD decides where we need to work, and military people need to be prepared to move to where the work is.
NEM is all well and good - stability in the UK, tick - but there will always be a requirement to spend time away. And this will always get cranked up to the maximum that the seniors think they can get away with. 3-month exercises in the Middle East, anyone? Just look at the number of people going there on a regular basis at the moment that are nothing to do with HERRICK but are doing "engagement". This will continue long after 2015 because if we sit in barracks doing our day job, we will get culled. While this is wrong, it is a sad fact of life. And this means that we will need a supply of young and carefree chaps/chapesses happy to spend about 33-50% of their time away (including exercises) year in, year out, even when there is nothing much going on out there.
And so I think that in a deep dark corridor in Manning, beyond the smokescreen of NEM, is a developing policy to drive people out at their mid-career point with a piffling (by current standards) immediate pension and only keep the very best for full careers - admittedly those will need to be compensated well, but it needs to stop being the "norm" to serve a full career before advances in senior pay can be considered.
Finally - experience is important in an air force that runs old kit like Tornado, C130, Puma - the old hands know where to apply an "engineering tap" to fix snags, and know which component to replace for a particular set of systems. However ,when you run kit like Voyager and F-35, the expensive and comprehensive support arrangements mean that rectification increasingly tends towards the "Haynes manual" approach. Experience will remain important - but those with 5-10 years' experience, rather than 15-20, will be in the 'sweet spot' that Manning try to protect. After that, it will be 'thankyou and goodbye'. In my opinion!