Finally, we commented on increasing evidence of concern expressed by serving personnel and their families over the future of their Armed Forces pension and the impact of revised indexing widely reported to have the potential to wipe thousands of pounds off their value.
In sum, we advised the AFPRB that many RAF families were hurting and as soon as the Body had an opportunity to recommend a pay award, it needed to be meaningful if it was to help the Service recruit and retain high calibre and motivated personnel. It was therefore all the more disappointing to hear of a further two years of public sector pay restraint announced in November 2011. We return to the fight in 2012!
Future Accommodation Project In 2010, we ran workshops on Future Accommodation as we predicted MoD staffs would be looking at options to potentially change the way Service accommodation is provided in the future.
In early 2011, the MoD established teams to inform the New Employment Model (NEM) and one of these groups was tasked with investigating Future Accommodation. Having advised them of the evidence gathered in 2010, we offered to run a similar survey in 2011, in the hope of influencing their work and ensuring RAF families had the opportunity to have their say on such an important topic.
We shared our questions with the other Service Families Federations and, in total, 6,000 military family members took the time to participate, providing many thousands of comments to back up the statistics. The full results are in the supplementary evidence report accompanying this Annual Report and it was very clear that RAF families had strong views on the provision of accommodation.
Home ownership was an aspiration for many, with almost 50% owning their own home, even if they did not live in it. There was strong evidence that RAF families wished to see allocation policies reviewed to bring the Services into the 21st century and recognise the many different family models now co-existing within the Armed Forces.
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www.raf-ff.org.uk
Defence Infrastructure Organisation Transformation Project and the Next Generation Estates Contract Housing has continued to dominate our issues database throughout 2011 and readers will not be surprised to learn that one of our key objectives has been to continue to build on the strong working relationships established with Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) staffs at every level. We have been keen to represent the family perspective on housing issues to key influencers and have welcomed the opportunity to attend high-level briefings on the Transformation agenda. This has included attending briefings by the Chief Executive DIO to the Commander-in-Chief Air and senior staffs, and observing at an Industry Day as part of the Next Generation Estates Contract process.
Classed by the DIO as key stakeholders, the three Service Families Federations have been able to ensure that, as the DIO goes through a painful and radical restructuring exercise, the needs of the families and personnel living in Service-provided accommodation are not lost in the noise. Our focus has been to emphasise customer service and effective communications and we have been actively involved in helping to design new processes aimed at delivering a more effective, customer- friendly service.
Conferences and Training Courses As always, the Federation has welcomed every opportunity to attend RAF conferences and training courses to both advise personnel and their families of our role and, where possible, to gather evidence to inform our work. We attended the annual Conference of Royal Auxiliary Air Force Squadron Commanders, the Chief of the Air Staff’s Conference of Air Officers, and the Chief of the Air Staff’s Conference of Warrant Officers. We contributed to the Future Commanders’ Study Period, the Senior Executives’ Partners course and the regular Community Support courses. Where invited, we supported HIVE and SSAFA-FH training events and attended a number of unit community events.
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