Leadership
As a former civil servant and ATC (non flying) volunteer I have watched this developing debacle with a great deal of sadness. I will not wander into the technical aspects of the issue( although to a layman it does seem that a lot of the issues are caused by military process rather than safety )but do think the changing nature of the commissioning system for senior leaders in the ATC may have had an impact. Until 2009 everyone ,apart from I think the Comdt, were Civil Servants with a Civilian Component commission. Overnight these commissions were withdrawn as being incompatible with Civil Service
Terms and Conditions. The options for the full time leadership were either to take a VR(T) commission or to convert certain posts back to the RAF under FTRS T&C. It seems the later course was chosen. Why might that have an impact? Once back in the RAF " mainstream" it appears that some of the senior leadership have moved even further away from the volunteers, forgetting that the strength of the organisation has always been the dedication and skills brought to the party by people who want to be , but don't need to be , there , week in and week out. As mentioned elsewhere bringing the "corporate knowledge " of the volunteers into the centre of solving this problem would have been a bonus. It may not have moved the technical solution forward ( although I suspect it would have) but it would have demonstrated that the senior leadership valued the volunteers who have been the backbone of the flying organisation since its inception. Leading volunteers needs a specific skill set that is probably summed up by the Sandhurst motto - Serve To Lead. It would be such a shame if the unintended consequence of a change to the commissioning system in 2009 has moved some of the senior leaders so far away from the volunteers that they no longer lead in any meaningful way at all.