Thanks for the replies chaps, very much appreciated. He's a good bloke and in true RAF fashion, he will just get on with it. And as I was in the same situation a couple of tours ago, I understand where he is coming from and want to try and reduce the impact of a system designed god know how many decades ago from screwing him over. That said, after a lot of head scratching over various JSPs, what I want to achieve and what I will be able to achieve are probably 2 different things.
So what have I discovered so far:
Technically, the RAF have done nothing wrong, so appealing on the grounds of misapplication of policy will get no-where. It's the policy itself that I think is out of step here. However, to go down this route simply demonstrates the difference between what is correct and what is right. The policy simply doesn't reflect what is becoming increasingly normal in society - people not being married for whatever reason.
Steve Tonks - this ties in nicely with your suggestion. I don't think any claim for hardship would succeed. He's a sensible bloke, so he isn't going to be reduced to living off Mother's Pride and processed cheese. And he isn't complaining about the posting per se, just this one aspect of the charging for accommodation which seems to be anomalous at best and discriminatory at worst
He will qualify for GYH, but that is effectively a travel allowance designed to reduced the impact of separation by contributing towards trips home (paraphrased from the JSP). To my mind, it is simply a weekly commuters' version of HTD and he will still likely be out of pocket. If GYH matches his accommodation charges, he will be paying for the commute home out of his own pocket whilst he gets HTD at the moment; if GYH matches his travel costs, he will be paying for accommodation on top of the costs of maintaining his home.
He is reluctant to rent his home out - not I use the word home rather than house. He deliberately bought where he did because he has links in the area and has just spent the past 2 years working hard to renovate it. And having looked at the sort of places he was likely to end up, this seemed to be a reasonable location that would allow him to live at home whilst offering the possibility of postings to at least 3 or 4 stations within a 50 mile radius. This post is either new or has been gapped for a long time and so has come out of left field - I don't know who is more surprised him or his new unit that they are actually getting somebody.
I did have a look into the world of discrimination on the grounds of marital status. I'm no lawyer and so have probably misunderstood the relevance of the cases that I read - they were linked to tax allowances - but they were nearly all thrown out because the courts ruled that marriage was a special institution that should be recognised as such, and favourable treatment in this case through tax and other allowances was the system's way of recognising the status of marriage. My argument would be that with the introduction of legislation to legalise gay marriages and the whitling away of child benefit that the concept of marriage has changed significantly in recent years, so maybe the old arguments about the system favouring married couples is no longer as relevant given today's demographics. Who knows, I'm probably clutching at straws.
I've suggested he might want to look into the possibility that he could claim it as a legitimate business expense and put a claim in to HMRC for tax relief / rebate. After all, he isn't doing this out of choice, it is purely work related. Again, probably clutching at straws, but as there are all sorts of things you can claim for these days, he might just get lucky.
By sheer coincidence, yesterday's P1Os contained the latest NEM Newsletter which had an item on accommodation charges and an invitation to ask questions direct of the NEM team - so I did, and I eagerly await their response. Again, I'm not hopeful as rather than seeing it as an opportunity to bring the Services into the 21st century, I suspect they will see it as another expense for them to absorb, and choose to continue to penalise people for choosing to have a life outside the wire. Will keep you all posted on the outcome of that one.
Finally - TOFO - you're right in that I don't think I can use your tales as arguments here, but they definitely raised a smile, so thanks
