Ratio of Air Marshals, Air Commodores and Group Captains in the RAF

[OldnDaft]

When I left Innsworth there were over 160 officers, of Wg Cdr rank and above, in unestablished posts. That is "employed" in working groups, studies and other such nonsense. There are still a significant number in MTM posts doing the same thing, not to mention gardening leave. It is ridiculous and must stop.

[Biggus]

No doubt in the future, as costs of equipment rise, and the RAF is left with only one Squadron of planes, the RN one warship and the Army one battalion of men, we will still have 30+ Air Marshals, Admirals and General at MOD/NATO HQs/the Pentagon/etc.......














But should we?

[Roland Pulfrew]

300 Group Captains
80 Air Commodores
23 AVMs
9 Air Marshals
2 ACMs

Whatever do they all do?

That is a tongue in cheek question, right? Because if you meant it may I suggest the intranet version of the RAF List? That will tell you what they do. As an example: only one of the ACMs is directly involved in the running of the RAF - CAS. The other one is in (tri-service) post of VCDS.

Of the AMs: only 2 are directly involved in the running of the RAF: DCom Ops and AMP. Of the others: 2 are in (tri-service) posts in NATO, one is the (tri-service) Surgeon General; one is the (tri-service) "chief engineer-air", one is the (tri-service) head of the MAA, one is in the (tri-service) head of capability post and the final one has recently retired.

Of the AVMs..... well you get my drift.

Do you want influence as an Air Force or do we hand all of these posts over to the RN and Army? I know what I would prefer.

[FODPlod]

Originally Posted by OldnDaft

When I left Innsworth there were over 160 officers, of Wg Cdr rank and above, in unestablished posts. That is "employed" in working groups, studies and other such nonsense. There are still a significant number in MTM posts doing the same thing, not to mention gardening leave. It is ridiculous and must stop.

I don't know enough to judge the validity of your point but according to the reference provided by LJ in post #10, the total number of OF-4s (Wg Cdrs) and above constitutes less than 4% of total RAF personnel.

The 160 officers you cite represent around 0.4% of total RAF personnel. In the RN, such officers in temporary posts would have been considered part of the appointer's (poster's) 'margin' to back-fill established billets vacated by people deployed at short notice, on course, promoted out of job, falling ill, volretting, etc., bearing in mind that not all are interchangeable owing to their particular rank, specialisation, experience, medcat, etc.

[Roland Pulfrew]

When I left Innsworth there were over 160 officers, of Wg Cdr rank and above, in unestablished posts. That is "employed" in working groups, studies and other such nonsense.

Of course, quite a few of them are filling unestablished out-of-area posts as well and quite a few more are dossing around as students on staff college!

[Just This Once...]

I think the relevance expired with the 'when I left Innsworth….'. In the post-SDSR world we have far more gaps than people and the forecast is for things to get worse, not better. Manning is estimating that the aircrew SO1 / SO2 gap is going to peak at about 400 short in a few years time.

[Biggus]

...."a few years time".

Ah, you mean just after 2015, and the next SDSR, which, no doubt in the post Afghanistan era, will probably reduce the RAF further, thus solving your problem - simples!

[Just This Once...]

Probably so!

[Warmtoast]

FODPlod

I don't know where Mr Clappison gets his "40 admirals" from. The RN website shows there are 31 serving officers of flag rank (i.e. admirals) in the Naval Service, including several engineers and a surgeon

Probably from the MOD's "UK Armed Forces Annual Personnel Report" dated 1st April 2013, published 23 May 2013 available here:
http://www.dasa.mod.uk/publications/...april_2013.pdf

This lists in "Table 1 - UK Regular Forces Rank Structure at 1 April 2013" on page six, that the Royal Navy has 41 Admirals.

30 Rear Admirals
9 Vice Admirals
2 Admirals

[Warmtoast]

OK

Slightly tongue in cheek but according to a parliamentary reply:
House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 31 Jan 2012 (pt 0002)

As at 1st January 2012 the RAF had 909 aircraft, including 65 Vigilant T1's and 82 Viking T1's at the Volunteer Gliding Schools (VGS). Deduct the VGS aircraft and one is left with 762 aircraft.

So with 300 Group Captains in the system they could each be in command of 2½ aircraft each.

What a difference from my days in the service when a Group Captain commanded a station, a Wing Commander was responsible for three squadrons and a squadron was led by a Squadron Leader.

[Hangarshuffle]

There's some good posts on here especially warmtoasts and FODplods, but the Forces Senior Officers are an easy target... When you look at the facts - the public know we have small numbers of actual war material these days i.e. ships and planes - and they just don't get it at all. They just think its jobs for the old boys (may be it is)? Looks like it, at times.

Its proper fit trained fighting men and women the forces need when the chips are down y'know. (We all know that).

If anyone here works in a civvy street commercially focused organisation (like er, me) and (yes, incredibly!) I work for a very foreign very successful massive company) I never get over how well they manage without top brass in their faces) compared to the services. They, as managers are allowed to just get on with it.
I have one country manager (sometimes see him, usually don't) a few heads of departments like production, maintenance, (we all eat in the same diner) and not much more.....we seem to do all right. p.s. plenty of good workers here like me, mind.

[dctyke]

I think the real test is the 'ratio' of ranks in relation to the size of the RAF over the years. I somehow think I know what the trend would be over the last decade or three.

[FODPlod]

Originally Posted by Warmtoast

...http://www.dasa.mod.uk/publications/...april_2013.pdf

This lists in "Table 1 - UK Regular Forces Rank Structure at 1 April 2013" on page six, that the Royal Navy has 41 Admirals.

30 Rear Admirals
9 Vice Admirals
2 Admirals

But it doesn't. The list shows that the Naval Service (i.e. the Royal Navy & the Royal Marines) is structured for:

30 OF-7s
9 OF-8s
2 OF-9s

As far as I can ascertain from the RN website (link), the actual numbers are:

22 Rear Admirals, 1 Surgeon Rear Admiral, 1 Chaplain of the Fleet and 4 RM Major Generals at OF-7 level (total 28)
7 Vice Admirals and 2 RM Lieutenant Generals at OF-8 level (total 9)
1 Admiral at OF-9 level (down from 2)

[Rosevidney1]

We are quibbling about trivia here. The obvious fact that we have far too many senior officers is the one that needs to be sorted. That they are well remunerated is not in dispute. Comparing military salaries with the profligate BBC is a red herring. Someone is going to have to make a decision on what we need for a rank structure that fits todays military. Are there too many officers ranks? Are there sufficient ORs ranks?

[Just This Once...]

Why is it an obvious fact?

[Jimlad1]

I suspect the 30 / 20 disparity is a rounding error - DASA tend to round up for various reasons, so its more likely 21 not 30.

As for suggesting that 31 people in total occupying the top 3 ranks of the Naval Service is too many - that is 0.1% of the entire service.

A question I have asked, without any good response is - how many should there be?

[Easy Street]

Originally Posted by dctyke

I think the real test is the 'ratio' of ranks in relation to the size of the RAF over the years. I somehow think I know what the trend would be over the last decade or three.

Originally Posted by Rosevidney1

Someone is going to have to make a decision on what we need for a rank structure that fits todays military. Are there too many officers ranks? Are there sufficient ORs ranks?

There's no need to make inferences: the ratio of officers:airmen has increased over the years. The reason is straightforward: contractorisation. In the air force of old, everything from depot-level maintenance to changing lightbulbs in offices to cleaning the toilets in the messes would have been done by non-commissioned serving personnel. Today all of those things, and many many more, are done by civilians under contract. So it's no surprise that the proportion of officers has increased; while some officer functions have been civilianised (much of the engineering and logistics support world, and station posts like OC Accounts), in general the scope for civilianisation of officer posts is somewhat less than amongst the trades.

[Finningley Boy]

Ah, you mean just after 2015, and the next SDSR, which, no doubt in the post Afghanistan era, will probably reduce the RAF further, thus solving your problem - simples!

I can't imagine what kind of an air force we'd have with further cuts. Doubtless any more will fall on the Tornado/Typhoon element. Following SDSR Air Vice-Marshal Bagwell, I believe it was, feared that the R.A.F. would by 2020 field only 6 such operational squadrons. The way General N Houghton is carrying on, reading between the lines, and with the mind set of today's political establishment, held across the board, I think its possible we'll be down to just 4 or 5 squadrons of Typhoons and no more before the first F35B arrives to form an additional squadron or even replacement for one of the remaining Typhoon squadrons. I'm not convinced all of this is due to shifting priorities in defence terms, just a continuing exercise in continually boiling down the overall list of assets and personnel and each time disaster doesn't strike will herald a further reduction. It will be interesting to see where it all ends up?

FB

[lederhosen]

The rather obvious point being missed is that as organisations become slimmer, and increasingly employ technology rather than manpower to get the job done, they still need managing.

The activities of today's senior management are not limited to man management but involve many other tasks unknown in victorian times or even the sixties. To assess properly the number of senior officers required you have to identify the total workload.

It goes without saying that the forces like many other governmental organisations can be made considerably more efficent. But reducing the problem to Jesus principle / roman legion formulas is misunderstanding the problem.

(Jesus principle: 1 manager to twelve workers as a lot of state organisations were structured, for those not schooled in organisational management.)

[Parson]

Considering the size that the military once was, there are too many commissioned ranks for the current manpower. At least 2 should be removed.

And post 2018, the clamour for one combinded service will grow and grow.........