Current Context
Morale post SDSR We are conscious that our evidence session with the AFPRB this year is taking place at a time of serious challenge for all military personnel and their families. There is no doubt in our mind that morale has been badly affected by the cumulative impact of the SDSR announcements, some of which have taken far too long for the Ministers to confirm.
Our view of family morale is that they feel bruised and battered by a series of bad news announcements and that they don‘t feel valued by either the Service or the Government. The launch of the Armed Forces Covenant in June did little to assuage these feelings and many are both sceptical and cynical as to the value of the Covenant at a time of radical force reductions and massive budget cuts.
For most of 2011, families at RAF Lossiemouth, RAF Leuchars and RAF Marham lived under a ‘Sword of Damocles’, which was only lifted when the tri-Service basing announcements were made in mid-July. The impact of the closure of RAF Leuchars, on top of the closure of RAF Kinloss announced earlier in the year, will dramatically reduce the RAF’s footprint in Scotland and have a significant impact on the thousands of families who have opted to settle there. Many bought homes in Moray or Fife, their partners have jobs, and their children are settled into the Scottish education system. For those who cannot be absorbed into the one remaining RAF base in Scotland, the need to relocate will cause significant disruption and stress.
Redundancy On top of that uncertainty, many thousands of families have lived under the shadow of impending compulsory redundancy, with the RAF’s first Phase announced on 1 Sep. The 1st Phase of redundancy failed to attract sufficient volunteers in the right ranks and trades/branches and therefore 53% of those selected were non-volunteers.
Phase 2, the fields for which will be announced in early 2012 (delayed from Sep 11), is likely to be a similar sized quota and will lead to even greater uncertainty as personnel and their families fear for their future. A 3rd and possibly 4th Phase still seems likely in order to reach the mandated manpower targets.
Cuts to Allowances This significant restructuring of the Service takes place
against a backdrop of wider societal misery, with cuts to benefits, poor employment and a general feeling of economic gloom. This also has an impact on the morale of Service personnel and their families, with most half-way through the 2-year pay freeze and many seeing significant cuts to allowances, announced as part of the Allowances Review in Jan 11.
We have seen particular concerns raised by those serving overseas, who have seen massive cuts to Local Overseas Allowances and the loss of School Children’s visits or flights home for students. Many make the valid case that they volunteered for an overseas tour based on a careful weighing up of the package of support available at the time. Many wives had given up well-paid jobs to accompany their husbands overseas, only to find they could not work in-theatre and the allowances that helped cushion the loss of the second income were now radically reduced.
Many told us they would not have volunteered if they’d known what was about to happen and several told us they were considering short-touring or serving unaccompanied for the remainder of their tour.
We wonder what impact this will have on people’s willingness to volunteer for overseas service. There remains a high number of RAF posts in key NATO appointments, embassies, etc, and, the Service might find it increasingly difficult to encourage personnel to volunteer to serve accompanied if the families judge the costs to be too high.
Remuneration continues to be a subject of considerable interest to RAF family members, and our audiences were keen to ensure that, once the opportunity arises for future pay awards to be considered, you have the appropriate evidence to hand upon which to base your recommendations.
Pensions/Debt As promised last year, we have updated our surveys to explore the pensions issue in a little more depth and we have continued our work exploring the extent and causes of debt in RAF families. As reported last year, a large proportion of the RAF has concerns about money and many are incurring significant levels of personal debt.
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www.raf-ff.org.uk
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