Bye Bye CEA.
Pontius Navigator - if one serves unaccompanied in London - even though family are in their own home in rural Loamshire - CEA is payable. I agree totally with the utility of CEA (as I have demonstrated) however I'm not sure that these arguments would survive detailed public scrutiny. That CEA is still necessary for 6000 Service children is an indication of the way we (mis) manage many of our personnel. Certainly for the RAF, most overseas posts are discretionary; there are no formed units overseas and most posts are middle-to-senior ranks appointments and thus there is generally wiggle-room with desk officers/career managers. I certainly could have got out of this post (and my previous two overeas posts) but I chose not to - and my Service expereince has been all the richer for it.
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A good summary.
We had 18 moves in 4 different countries during 29 years of marriage in the Army, including 4 moves in 2 years, not uncommon in the Army. There was never any suggestion that I could choose where I was posted. We signed up to serve and that was what we did. Without BSA, as it was then, by educating the kids locally, I could have afforded a small house when we retired but the kids would have been in shreds. I received £109,000 in BSA for three kids and paid out £63,000 in top up school fees. This was during the last century of course.
Without BSA I would not have stayed in. It allowed us to make manageable decisions and have some quality of family life while serving the Queen.
If it is abolished, the effect will be enormous, catastrophic for retention and will in the end cost a great deal more that it might save on paper.
They wouldn't be that stupid, would they?
A good summary.
We had 18 moves in 4 different countries during 29 years of marriage in the Army, including 4 moves in 2 years, not uncommon in the Army. There was never any suggestion that I could choose where I was posted. We signed up to serve and that was what we did. Without BSA, as it was then, by educating the kids locally, I could have afforded a small house when we retired but the kids would have been in shreds. I received £109,000 in BSA for three kids and paid out £63,000 in top up school fees. This was during the last century of course.
Without BSA I would not have stayed in. It allowed us to make manageable decisions and have some quality of family life while serving the Queen.
If it is abolished, the effect will be enormous, catastrophic for retention and will in the end cost a great deal more that it might save on paper.
They wouldn't be that stupid, would they?
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Thank you.
Yes you, and anyone else, could have wriggled but presumably you were boarded and selected at best-man-for-the-job from both a Service, International, and career perspective. Avoid the post and your career would probably have suffered.
It is that very flexibility that CEA gives that would have encouraged you to go and equally all the others in the competition would also have needed CEA.
Certainly for the RAF, most overseas posts are discretionary; there are no formed units overseas and most posts are middle-to-senior ranks appointments and thus there is generally wiggle-room with desk officers/career managers. I certainly could have got out of this post (and my previous two overeas posts) but I chose not to - and my Service expereince has been all the richer for it.
It is that very flexibility that CEA gives that would have encouraged you to go and equally all the others in the competition would also have needed CEA.
PN: as a family - and as an individual - I enjoyed immensly our overseas tours but in the RAF of the 21st Century, most overseas tours are akin to 'career death'. In my area, unless you were on the HQ STC/PMA/Air Command treadmill, your career peaks fairly early. Overseas tours are regarded as a 'jolly' (some are) but I felt that in my last two tours, I worked harder than I had in the MOD and probably achieved more for UK PLC than being AD Strat Change Transformational Management Focal Point Cluster, or some-such ultimately futile appointment. I can also think of soem recent appointments to reasonably high profile (albeit SO1) NATO posts of some of the most inappropriate people. There can't have been much thought put in it by the desk officers.I agree, again, totally with the utility of CEA but I reiterate that is not the outside view of this 'benefit'. Similarly, overseas tours are no longer generous in terms of LOA etc and it is a real struggle to afford to live modestly here, pay additional school fees etc. But we know where sympathy sits in the dictionary...
Last edited by Whenurhappy; 18th Oct 2010 at 13:27.
