Independent Pay Review
There is one key reason that a lot of us RAF types hate the actuals system. It works absolutely fine when one person goes away for a couple of nights. They collect receipts and claim back their money via JPA.
However, now imagine a squadron (150-200 people) going on a detachment for 4-6 weeks. They are given a weeks worth of money in advance. At the end of that week they must all line up with a fistful of receipts and paperwork to present to a team of adminers in order to work out how much money they get for the following week. This process repeats itself at the end of every week.
Under the old system this job could be done by one clerk and all they had to do was give out rates to each individual and collect a signature.
It saved money by not requiring multiple clerks to deploy, it was far simpler and it didn't piss off every member of the detachment or force every individual to spend several hours completing mundane paperwork.
You can call it whinging if you like but these are the hairs that break the backs of camels.
I've said it before but if money saving was the aim they could have just cut the rates by 10-20% and kept the old system. People would have complained at first but that would have dissipated eventually.
Still, what's done is done.
BV