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F e d e r a t i o n N e w s Federation T


his year sees a new chapter in our plans for evidence gathering workshops on family-related subjects. Building on the last year’s


interest we now wish to hone in on subjects close to your hearts and which are also becoming ‘hot topics’ in the corridors of power.


Evidence we collected from those who attended workshops last year proved invaluable. If you haven’t seen the results yet they are available to view on our website. We produced a 76-page Evidence Report on all you said with graphs for easy comparisons.


The Evidence Report was produced on the back of 56,000 individual votes. This allowed the Federation to both report key themes and trends to those with influence and to use the results to inform the future direction of the Federation’s work. The Federation is indebted to all those who took part.


The evidence we have been able to extract from our database has already been used to inform policy debates on issues as varied as: the definition of family, the length of Operational deployments and the all-important deliberations by the Armed Forces Pay Review Body (AFPRB).


We are confident that our evidence has a part to play in influencing the policy agenda. By sharing the results of our first season of workshops, our intent is to both inform specific addressees as well as provide feedback to those who attended the workshops. The Under Secretary of State for Defence specifically requested sight of our findings, as did the AFPRB and staff within Defence Estates (DE), the AMP Briefing Team and others. The Federation


20 Summer 2010


NEWS Our Workshop Programme for this Season


team hope that personnel and families will find the results interesting.


One key result for us was that the workshops were well received. Satisfaction levels amongst our audiences were extremely high, with the majority voting to show that they had enjoyed the workshops and would recommend them to others. The encouraging response from both those who took part and those who found it an invaluable document to use in their work has encouraged us to refine the workshops for a further season.


So our focus this year will be:


Future Housing Aspirations. Future requirements/aspirations rather than assessment of current performance of Defence Estates. The aim of this workshop is to look at other aspects of home ownership and accommodation issues. Questions cover whether or not MOD should continue to provide Service Families Accommodation (SFA); whether SFA allocations policies should change; what motivates personnel to buy a house; what aspects of living in SFA/SLA personnel enjoy most/least etc; etc.


Pay & Allowances plus Deployments. To inform the Armed Forces Pay Review Body. Questions cover satisfaction with pay award and the allowances package; causes and extent of debt; separation owing to ops; work/life balance; quality of life in the RAF.


Childcare. Questions cover preferences for childcare; cost; distance; choice; how much childcare is required, when and for how many children. This workshop is designed for all who have children, those who may be planning to have children and those who manage those with children and childcare issues.


Employment & Training Opportunities for Family Members. This workshop will build on work by the Service Families Employment & Skills Task Force. Questions cover impact of RAF mobility on employment and training; transfer of Civil Service employment; CRB clearances; transfer of training; barriers to employment. This workshop should appeal to all non-serving partners whose careers may have been impacted by the mobile military lifestyle.


Definition of Family. To feed into the Strategic Defence & Security Review. Questions will cover motivation towards marriage/civil partnership; management of lone parents; access to children of divorced parents; care of elderly parents; young adults still living with serving personnel; recognition of partners. This workshop should appeal across the board and we predict it will reveal interesting differences between gender groups and age groups!


The Emerging Plan Opposite is our list of workshops as it stands at the moment. Stations were invited to participate and to choose from the above list those workshops they wished to host.


Please do come along and add your views if you can. On the day there will be timings for the various subjects, so you don’t have to sit through all of them if the subjects are not relevant. You may have something to say on ‘Definition of a Family‘ for example but may not necessarily have views on childcare.


If you are unable to attend a workshop, or there is not one coming to your unit but would like to air your views, then please send your thoughts by email, via our website at: www.raf-ff.org.uk


www.raf-ff.org.uk


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