3-Do nothing and hope that they've retired/been promoted by the time the house of cards collapses
That's been the policy of many a flight commander (SO2/3) for the last 15 years, although swap 'do nothing' with 'change something;
anything'. I'm still convinced the study makers are asking the wrong questions. You can't see underlying reasons if you just pop up every year, ask a list of pre-decided questions and bugger off with the answers to make a graph. You can't measure the good guys having to take on more duties because of the shirkers exploiting get outs for OOA; you can't measure the impact of junior officers being posted every 2 years just as they get fairly useful at something etc etc. I wrote a letter to the RAF News in 2006 from Det about the deskies' seemingly cavalier attitude to managing OOA dates, such that people were constantly getting short notice, avoidable, date changes (usually forward) that the incumbents dates were never going to work for from their arrival 4/6 months earlier. It's perhaps notable that RAF News
seemed to be the best way to raise the issue in the absence of other obvious means, and while it was a valid morale issue for 25+ people due to RTU in the next calendar month - so not an isolated moan - the respondee at PMA never bothered to pen an 'official reply' so it wasn't published (ergo highlighted). Result: still happens, people get fed up and leave,
not necessarily because of the duty commitment, so much as the cock around factor. 13 years after 9/11 changed the landscape the RAF should be really good at OOA det management as, as far as I can see, we're contracting not invading anywhere new.