The year I PVR'd was the year the airman assessments changed from being rated in a scale of 1 to 9 to being rated on a score of 1 to 6. Th official reason was that anyone getting a score of 1 to 3 really had no point still being in uniform, but as I quipped to my Chief during the interview "This new system means you just have a role a dice to see what you're giving us..."

His wry smile indicated either this was a bad attempt at humour or too close to the truth...

A sincere thanks here to Herod, who started this thread, and Lordflasheart for the link.
I recently received a huge package including stuff from my initial visit to Hornchurch back in 1960 through to the time when I left the service of a grateful nation some twenty odd years or so later.
I have to concede that many of the assessments were ( with hindsight) absolutely bang on.
A good read before I put the whole lot through the shredder.....after emailing my thanks to the people at Cranwell who've had to photocopy such a huge amount of stuff gratis (to me)
NRU74

Me too. 15 years after you but still enlightening and insightful to read. My shredder was gasping for breath !

NEO

I had all my records nicked from Innsworth - someone had it all on an unencrypted dongle along with thousands of other records. Its all right though, Sir Simon said it was fine and I shouldn't worry. Still have his letter just in case though. Anyway, whoever has my complete service record is welcome to it - perhaps a film?

Thanks for bringing it up again guys. Since I started it I've been through a divorce and two (yes two) house moves, so it got put on the back-burner. It was sent today, and I'll post anything printable when it returns.

I got my 2.5kg of ex-forest recently too. I was surprised to find myself getting quite upset with some of the reporting. The consistent thread was people being impressed with me on first contact and assuming I was a genius. Then they would slag me off as over-confident and lazy when I didn't reach their expected standard. I feel truly grateful that no-one ever spotted that I was actually completely out of my depth and only clinging on by my fingernails.

I knew that 'garrulous and over-familiar when drunk' was in there somewhere and even found it twice! Consistency personified. :)

I never thought of asking for my Hornchurch and Biggin assessments, nor any of my RN reports at BRNC.

More trees, please ... requests incoming!

Good, good, let's waste more of the MoDs limited budget.

Isn't development feedback to be welcomed?

Downsizer, at the moment it is probably idle interest, only a matter of time before someone finds an adverse comment and goes to court, then the big bucks will tot up.

Idle interest adds up. People are paid to deal with every single FOI request. Just saying....

Perhaps 9-sided dice got too expensive.

http://www.mathartfun.com/shopsite_s.../html/IMd9.jpg

$2.50, if you were wondering.

I once commented to my flight commander during one particularly, err, 'ill-tempered' OJAR chat that he was only intereted in giving people a good write-up if they strode around the squadron with a clipboard, and sent pointless emails to all and sundry at 16:59 every day.

Personnel are entitled to receive a copy of everything held on them - it's the law, regardless of cost. Some of the reports written when it was a closed reporting system were awful, equally some of the information and comments on the old dossiers simply would not stand up to scrutiny.

OD, my point, if someone chose to challenge their historic reports.

I suspect I had bad reports from some wg cdrs, at least I had some satisfaction when one was 1020d and some explanation when one died from a brain tumour. Another gave me a bollocking when I arrived; his career came to a grinding halt at the end of his tour. I only had a couple who I could not get on with but beware the smiling knife.

PN, agreed on the complaint point. The policy at (the then) PMA of "weeding" dossiers and asking the respective Deskie/Drafter what could be released to the individual has thankfully stopped but how much was destroyed? The move to e-dossiers was a positive step, albeit forced by the move to H Wyc and the lack of space for a dossier storage machine allied to the implementation of JPA. I would urge anyone to request a full copy of their documents and a copy of the open door notes from OCMIS/PACMIS.

I am surprised that so many people are going to the trouble (and for the MOD the expence) of getting their reports, then shredding them. Would it not be better to keep them, so that future generations could read them. It would enable our descendents to get a much better picture of who we were and what we experienced. I would love to be able to read the reports on my long-dead forefathers, particular those who were killed in action.

During the leaving interview at the end of one appointment (posting) the Captain said, I sent your report back to the Commander and told him to rewrite it....absolutely outrageous! He did not actually tell me what the problem had been. The joining interview in my next appointment was effectively a bollocking from the Commodore. Again without going into detail. I never did find out what it had all been about.

The Commander and Commodore achieved no further promotion.....but I did. Wott me worry?

Exactly my reason ... for my son and grandson to read [and occasionally enjoy] after I've gone.

Having had to compile a few RN Officers' Reports in the past, I was always struck by how little space was provided to actually say anything. Brevity to point of 'running up a couple of signal flags' :D

OD, to what end?

Interestingly my Retired Officer representative had applied for his. He had an interesting career until he descended to a level of competence before reaching wg CDR, he should have gone higher. Anyway he said his nav training records were very illuminating including reports on his fellow students including me. I had the task of assisting as 2nd nav on his chop ride.

MPN, I eventually had to get to grips with civil service reports. I was staggered to be given a 10 page document to report on my typist. She was brilliant and typed well above the maximum expected rate. She didn't want promotion just to be left in peace.

Later I mooted the idea that reports should be at the request of the individual with certain caveats.

If you had a career and wanted supporting reports
If your assignment was coming to an end so your poster could match to jobs
If your boss thought a report - good or bad - should be raised.

There was a story, many years ago when the Air Sec was in Adastral House, that a particular CS would file awkward files behind cabinets, under the carpet, or hidden somewhere when he didn't know what to do. Subjected often remainder in post for years undisturbed with the turbulence.