Foreword by the Director
Our remit is to provide independent, evidence-based reports on topics that are relevant to serving RAF personnel and their families, be they Regular, Reservist, single and married or in a partnership. That pay, allowances and the quality of life our people enjoy are topics of considerable interest hardly comes as a surprise and is refl ected in the 1239 responses we received to this survey. We are very grateful to everybody who parti cipated, either online or in person at one of our workshops. Bare stati sti cs are useful but we hope that the comments, expressed (someti mes in no uncertain terms!) add colour and emphasis to the report. When collated, they came to 66 pages and we have therefore been able to record here just a small cross secti on of the hundreds received.
We visited RAF Marham, RAF Halton and RAF Lossiemouth. Our grateful thanks go to those personnel and their families for their support and to the Stati on Commanders for allowing us access to their units to poll their personnel during workshops. Online parti cipati on came from far afi eld: In additi on to those personnel taking part from mainstream units, we recorded responses from Abu Dhabi, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Cyprus, Gibraltar, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, USA, the Falkland Islands and from personnel serving on Op Herrick. This year we noti ced an increase in parti cipants from the RAF diaspora of personnel located around the UK, parti cularly from those living and working at Army units.
The RAF community again had much to say about the conti nuing pay restraint and the concerns of many that pay is not keeping pace with the cost of living. Of note, while many recognised that their current basic pay is sti ll sati sfactory, there were fewer positi ve comments about the allowances package and more families than ever are now ‘feeling the pinch’, with more than half reporti ng that they are worse off fi nancially than four years ago.
The evidence we have gathered will be used primarily to inform our oral evidence session with the Armed Forces Pay Review Body (AFPRB) in October 2013 but the report will also be circulated at the most senior levels within the RAF, MOD and government. With many signifi cant initi ati ves either underway or about start, such as the New Employment Model, the Armed Forces Covenant and the impact of change arising from the return to conti ngency and base closures, we hope that this report is of use, either directly or as background informati on and supporti ng evidence. Perhaps more importantly, we hope that it will be read by the RAF personnel and their families that we are here to represent: To them, we say a big “Thank you” for supporti ng our work.
BILL MAHON Director RAF Families Federati on
www.raf-ff
.org.uk 3
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