stability for their families, mainly for partner’s employment or children’s education reasons and we expect this trend to continue.
Continuity of Education Allowance (CEA) This year the RAF FF saw a noticeable increase in casework arising from families whose entitlement to CEA had been reviewed.
Two trends emerged: one where the uniformed family member had previously been authorised to claim the allowance on an ‘Involuntary Separated’ basis, only to find the status reviewed and withdrawn, with retrospective recovery action taken against them for monies received.
The second was where uniformed family members had been declared non-mobile by the Manning Directorate, correctly working to a revised set of mobility criteria. This was resulting in children being withdrawn from boarding schools or the families facing significant costs in order to preserve the continuity of education they thought they had secured when first placing the child into the boarding environment.
Such cases inevitably led to protracted appeals and Service Complaints, with only a minority being upheld by the SPVA. The stress this has caused some families has been massive and there is a strong feeling amongst many parents that they have been let down by the system and that their children have suffered as a result. All acknowledge the need to scrutinise entitlement to this expensive allowance very closely, and many understand that a minority have abused the system and defrauded the public purse. However, the overriding sense is one of betrayal, with many angry that the goal posts were moved after they had made significant, life-changing decisions based on the extant rules. Whilst the AFPRB have no input into this particular allowance, we feel it is important that members understand the background to this particular issue as it may come up during your own unit visits.
Housing Market Families also discuss the housing market and the impact of the ‘credit crunch’ on aspirations to own or move home. Home ownership remains a very high priority for many RAF families as evidenced by our Future Accommodation survey. Many face particular challenges as they are serving in areas with comparatively high property prices and where the non-serving partner is unable to secure employment.
We receive regular comments about the need for additional financial support for military families to achieve that first step on the housing ladder and complaints that existing allowances are woefully inadequate to recompense for the costs of buying or selling a home.
Pensions For the first time this year, we included specific questions relating to pensions, and the top-level results are included in this report. Concerns about pensions have been exacerbated by the change in indexing of public sector pensions and the significant reduction in the tax relief thresholds. As reported last year, in our view, the military pension is highly valued by serving and non-serving family members and is certainly a factor that determines how long an individual is prepared to serve.
We believe the majority of junior personnel aspire to a pension-earning engagement/commission and work hard to achieve the promotion that delivers this security of employment.
Once serving on a pension-earning engagement, we believe the pension serves as a strong ‘pull’ factor, retaining personnel until the date they can earn immediate pension payments. However, once they have reached that stage in their careers, the pension serves as a strong ‘push’ factor as personnel compare the disadvantages of continuing with a military career to the advantages of a second career in civilian life, supplemented by a Service pension.
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www.raf-ff.org.uk
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