Help focus the cuts on the right areas

[newbiep]

Become the biggest cap badge of the army and suck it up

Get rid of Typhoon

Scrap BBMF and Reds

Use the NHS - only have TA medics

Stop white fleet vehicle use, if you can't get to a meeting in a landrover, then use your own car or a bike.

Get rid of education centres in the RAF, TDOs are pointless there is a minimum educational requirement to join

Scrap resettlement...it's not prison no one needs to be rehabilitated, go and find your own new career...not difficult google it.

[Could be the last?]

Scrap UKMFTS -

The trg system currently in place works (it has evolved over 90+ years!), except for the fact that the ac are on their last legs. Use a fraction of the money to procure the ac or if you have too, lease them. Paying the contractor an obscene amount of money and then doing all the work for them is tantamount to fraud. Invest wisely and build in excess so that we can sell the trg to the global market and keep the profits to re-invest in ourselves. It is no different to what the company is going to do anyway!!

Scrap FSTA -

If we are staying in the sandpit we will face the same issues as we had with the C-17 and end up paying through the nose for all the work that needs to be done outside of the original contract. PFIs for operational ac does not work!!!!

Scrap SARH -

Move the Merlin MK3 fleet to the SARF. Everyone knows that the Army want the big lift capability of the CH47. Current SARF has a fleet of approx 26 Seakings a one for one swap with the Merlin Force. More importantly, AW have now ironed out most of the issues with the ac and this would be an effective expansion of the fleet. AW would build a fully marinized version for CHF, not a bodge job on the current ac. (Industry supported in the UK/a reduction in the number of ac types requiring trg (OCUs and simulators already in place at the MSHAFT)/keeps SAR Mil (RN & RAF) reduces the financial risk of another potential PFI/RBS cock up)

Scrap Puma 2 -

Use the cash for a smaller fleet of SuperPumas and direct their efforts to the dark side!

Invest -

Pay the going rate for a decent law firm to stop the MOD getting turned over by the various cowboys we seem to continually do business with!

Helicopter Command -

One command that covers all RW activity. (JHC/SARF/CHF/Fleet)

[Pontius Navigator]

Originally Posted by theprior

1. Support to RIAT - no more free military labour - save millions

2. No more town shows.

These are generally 'free-labour' and uncosted so stopping would not save money just give people more free time.

You might have added:

Wimbledon, do the RAF still provide ushers?

There are several other events too where personnel volunteer to serve. Again generally FOC and they volunteer as a diversion from work. Of course it throws a burden on those still at work but would not save money.

All airshows with creative accounting.

War-walks!

Exped training in the Maldives etc.

Adventure training unless you go to places relevant to current Ops - that leaves out Ascension Island.

[Unchecked]

So between spending 7 months out of every 15 in sandy places on PDT or Ops, I now have to conduct my AT in these 'relevant' sandy areas?

Why don't we just move all our forces out of the UK, sell off all the estates and we can all live in Bastion & Kandahar. That'll save a packet.

[Wrathmonk]

Unchecked

Like it .... worked in Northern Ireland for 30 odd years. Could have three year accompanied tours as well.

[Unchecked]

Yeah, and if the missus' dons a burkah and hibab, then I can make massive cuts to her shopping allowance

[minigundiplomat]

So between spending 7 months out of every 15 in sandy places on PDT or Ops, I now have to conduct my AT in these 'relevant' sandy areas?

I find it difficult to reconcile this question. If you are spending 7 out of 15 months on ops, why do you need to go abroad at taxpayers expense to learn leadership, or increase your confidence?

Surely ops affords the same opportunities as AT in regard to personal development.

I may be wrong, but your question leads me to believe that:

A. All the previous blah given as justification for AT is bolleaux, and you just wish to go skiing/parachuting etc overseas at the taxpayers expense, at a time when it is unaffordable.....

or

B. You need to get out more whilst on ops.


I appreciate that AT is a good thing, and ideal when there are no ops on which to develop yourself. However, the sandy place provides plenty of challenges, and the economic climate is such that these nice to haves will have to go to pay for the essentials.

[Pontius Navigator]

MGD, you took my TIC comment and gave a very valid and serious answer. If unchecked does have the time for AT after his spell in the sandpit, his post-op leave, and his pre-op deployment training then AT in Morocco would be more valuable than AT in the Maldives which would look very much like tax-payer funded R&R.

Now if it was actually billed as post-op R&R then go for it.

[Tourist]

The last place you should try to save money is on things that keep people happy.
Conversely they could save a lot of money in the long term by spending more on quarters, AT, gyms, private schools, fun etc.
The biggest cost is training people. Every serviceman who doesn't want to leave saves a fortune.
Large, successful companies know this, which is why Microsoft, for example, have such fantastic terms and conditions (free daycare on site etc). People are happy and thus more productive and flexible in every way, plus will do anything to remain in the job, knowing there is nowhere better to work.

[Unchecked]

Definitely A. Work hard, Play hard, i think they used to call it.

Now it's just Work hard.

[Pontius Navigator]

Unchecked Tourist, both spot on.

My anti-AT bit was slightly TiC. The point though is that fun bit only seems to be available to those that don't have the work hard bit to do. The fun isn't spread evenly, unlike the sh1t which spreads over all those who remain behind.

Story:

We used to be awarded an AOCs stand-down. A complete stand-down with everybody having a complete day off at the same time.

Last time 1 Gp suggested we had the AOCs stand-down spread over several days so we would not lose a day's work. Pointed out that if 10% of the work force stood down on each day the remaining workers would have to do 110% of the work that day. End result no one got any realistic stand-down. Simplistic but we managed the proper day off added to a bank holiday. working time lost was only 4 hours rather than a full day but it led to a happier work force.

[Biggus]

Tourist,

Given that the common belief is that all the military services will be shedding people post the SDR to save money, then perhaps "keeping people happy" isn't a high priority amongst the senior neddies....

Short sighted maybe, and I'm not saying that it is my point of view, but being in a situation where people are willing to volunteer to leave will avoid all the headlines about compulsory redundancies!

In a years time, when policemen, nurses, etc are losing their jobs, then if a newspaper runs a story about a supposedly "taxpayer funded" trip for military personnel to go diving in the Far East say.........bad PR or what!

[Unchecked]

Even via a media that presumes to claim a fairer deal for our armed forces? Besides, most AT I've been involved isn't completely funded by the taxpayer, I know we pay a fraction of a civvy, but we do pay into this ourselves, too.

[minigundiplomat]

I never said AT was a bad thing; it is however, inappropriate at the present time.

[vecvechookattack]

I managed to grab some AT last year.... For the week it cost me £ 245 and it cost the Navy £18.47 + £20 incidentals.

The benefit that this gave me by far exceeded the £ 38.47 I claimed of Madge

[Pontius Navigator]

Unchecked, only half the answer. People have difficulty finding time for leave. Others go on AT. Who covers the gap?

[charliegolf]

Boarding School Allowance?

How many children are boarding these day because of the disruption to their education caused by the constant moving around of mums and or dads?

CG

PS Were there ever day schoolers paid for out of BSA? That would be an interesting thing to justify.

[cornish-stormrider]

PN - your sums might be a bit out with your 110%, good idea but let us assume you are in a section of five, with one off your workload goes to 125% - in the olden days where the productive time was reckoned to be 60% of flat out capacity you could spare a bit for the surge.

Then the mil embraced LEAN (and did it very badly), NOW YOU'RE ALL FORKED. ( Coz the spoon supplier went from JIT to JTFL)

what can we cut, secondary duties that take place while doing your primary task perhaps, I saw engineers spending more time running the SIF bouncy castle or the tea bar than doing their job. Definitely any new IT bolleaux that has not been proven by customers, I use sage, others use SAP, you all get JPA.....

This AT and Exped stuff - this was part of the perks when you joined, it is your right to apply for it. I did notice a correlation between those who did AT and those who drank lots, the more you drank and pitched in looking like you slept in a hedge the less AT you did.

A word of advice to bosses, if you have airmen who regularly work the job and not the clock and always do that little bit of overtime just to help out, make sure they get rewarded....
One volunteer is worth 10 pressed men.

[pamac51]

Fighter Controllers/Scopies

I was talking to a recently retired FC/Scopie type the other day and his view was to get rid of the lot of them - what do they do all day!

[vecvechookattack]

Boarding School Allowance?

How many children are boarding these day because of the disruption to their education caused by the constant moving around of mums and or dads?

Thats a good point. I know at least 4 guys who work at a Somerset establishment but board their Children in Sherborne. Thats wrong isn't it?

I was talking to a recently retired FC/Scopie type the other day and his view was to get rid of the lot of them - what do they do all day!

Pretty much the same as the Puma force..... That lot are on borrowed time