Bigpants
While I totally agree with your sentiments we now live in a society where the ambulance chasing lawyers and headline seeking journalists would wreck the career of anyone who takes any sort of calculated risk with that added bonus that the govenment is a bottomless money pit if they win in court.
The only way to go if you are a public servant and want to see your pension is to disguise any decision within committees and endless meetings to avoid any one person being responsible, there are some very good people in the RAF and cadet forced who are forced to drive daily through this sea of bull~*#! in order to make some sort of progress, they are hindered on one hand by "compliance" and on the other by endless budget cuts.
I have a great deal of respect for 99% of the RAF officers I have met and worked with but they have to operate in the environment they find thenselfs in, it is not a surprise to me that with all the pressures these people took their eye off the ATC glider ball while having to attend to front line duties.
I long for the days when I was a cadet, the risk assessment of cadet activities was done in my squadron but two guys one who's risk assessment training had been done at night over Berlin and the other at Arnem, these very tough men had common sence by the bucket load but I would bet that had something gone badly wrong their logic would have been torn apart in court by a modern ambulance chasing lawyer who has years to scrutinise a decision that had to be taken in seconds.
I'm sorry to say this Bigpants but you and me are just dinosaurs in this risk free PC fantasy that the lawyers have created to make a fast buck, sadly the real victims are the youth of today who have to turn to video games to get any sort of adventure and due to lack of risk exposure will become a danger to themselves as they will fail to develop any common sence of their own.