F o r e w o r d
FOREWORD BY AIR VICE MARSHAL
SIMON BRYANT CHIEF OF STAFF PERSONNEL
I
recently had the pleasure of visiting the RAF Families Federation at their offices at Wittering and I was delighted to find that the Federation team are as energised about supporting serving personnel and their families as I am.
Indeed, just about every topic they briefed me on hit a chord since everything my team at Air Command does has a consequence for personnel and their families. Indeed, my team and I are acutely aware of the consequences of our actions for those affected by our decisions. I travel the RAF frequently and I have seen first hand that serving personnel are concerned about the operational tempo, separation from loved ones and the impact on families. I take that message back to my team and it underpins our efforts to provide a professional and equitable service to all our Service men and women.
There is no doubt that, since the advent of JPA and the subsequent loss of career management staff (40% less than we had at Innsworth) brought about by the requirement to relocate to Air Command, the task we face in managing careers and meeting our people’s expectations has been considerable. I would just like to reassure you that, whilst the team is smaller and undoubtedly under pressure, it remains dedicated to ensuring that the needs of the Service are met with as little negative impact on the Service person or his/her family as possible. We are continually reviewing how we go about our work and I am confident of securing additional resources (manpower) in the near future so that we can improve the service we offer further still.
The RAF Families Federation WHAT ARE WE ALL ABOUT?
WHAT WE DO The RAF Families Federation provides an independent voice for serving RAF and their families on issues of concern to them. The team gathers the evidence and represents the views of family members to senior RAF staffs and Ministers.
WHO WE DO IT FOR Anyone serving in the RAF or RAF Reserves, together with their respective partner/spouse, children/parents and close relatives by blood or marriage/civil registration. Anyone whose life is directly affected by the fact that a family member is serving in the RAF is entitled to be represented by the RAF FF.
www.raf-families-federation.org.uk
THE SORT OF ISSUES The Federation represents any concerns arising from RAF family members. We receive calls on Service policy matters, postings, separation, children’s education, health issues, dentists, special needs provision, serving lone parents, housing matters, quarter allocations, pay and remuneration, childcare issues, non-entitled partners etc etc.
HOW TO MAKE CONTACT
The FF conducts regular visits to RAF units. We have our own website
www.raf-ff.org.uk and magazine. Our telephone no is: 01780 781650. Our address is: 13-15 St Georges Road, Wittering, Cambridgeshire, PE8 6DL.
Autumn 2008 3
However, there are some hard facts we all have to face in this modern expeditionary air force. Serving personnel must now expect to deploy Out Of Area as part of their core duties – if they weren’t deployable, they would not be in uniform. And whilst efforts continue to ensure that, wherever possible, personnel do not deploy beyond ‘harmony’ guidelines (i.e. 4 months on deployed duties followed by 16 months back at base), the pressure of operations and the challenges currently faced in both recruitment and retention mean that, in some cadres, the separation exceeds this. The good news is that 18 months ago, the RAF had no less than 22 ‘operational pinch points’, where a particular combination of rank or specialisation was exceeding ‘harmony’; at the time of writing, there is only 1 operational ‘pinch point’ albeit the fluid nature of RAF operations means this may well have changed by the time this edition of Envoy goes to print. My message is that all possible steps are being taken to limit separation to a reasonable level and my staffs are working incredibly hard to spread the pain as equitably as possible across the RAF.
I take this opportunity to wish the RAF Families Federation every success over the coming year and to reiterate my commitment to keeping them informed of the ‘big picture‘ as far as personnel policies and implementation are concerned. Working together, we can help to identify the key challenges facing RAF personnel and their families and I for one do not under-estimate the influence the Federation can have at the highest levels, where their independent voice can be a powerful advocate for improvements in the delivery of support to the RAF family.
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