TA to stop training

[Swaliswan]

Here. I can't decide if I'm looking forward to DH not going away for six months or if I'm more worried about our mortgage application getting turned down

He's getting briefed tonight so I only know what is on the news at the moment.

What do you all make of this latest money saving technique?

I think it sucks - it will presumably mean people leave the TA and there will be more pressure on the Regular Forces for rates of deployments and lack of R and R in between times. It is shortsighted in the extreme.

They could cut some civil servants and the PR dept...that'd save enough to keep the TA going.

I was appalled by this too
My immediate thought was what about all the 'grass roots' people involved on a weekly meeting basis - persumably a lot will stop being involved for 6 months and then permanantly (as other interests/hobbies etc fill the space)

I agree - cut some of the fairly pointless overpaid jobs that ought to cover it
All the ridiculous sums spent by councils on logo changes and mission statements - that money would be better spent on the TA/army imho

I'm shocked - I'm in the TA and I'm disgusted at the way this has been disseminated i.e. via the press (on a weekend, perhaps a joke aimed at the "weekend warrior"?) and not down through the chain of command.
We've had restrictions on training since June but this is absurd. Come April 2010 TA units will find themselves undermanned(womaned) as people simply won't go back.
I have 8 years regular army service and (ahem) 15 years TA service and I feel really betrayed by this sort of treatment.
How on earth are we supposed to operate as "one army" when some of us have been effectively mothballed.
Sorry for the rant, had to get it off my chest

I'm really annoyed that DH knew more about it from the BBC than from the army when I spoke to him earlier He has had a restriction on the number of days that he can be paid for a few months and this has already impacted on our income and meant that he has had a number of days unpaid eg this weekend. I wonder how much they are going to pressure him to keep going in for free until the pay comes back. And goodness only knows what is going to happen about his pot sgts course that is due to start on 16thf. And what about Bounty?

So many questions that could be answered by the Army and I wouldn't be sat here worrying about it if it hadn't got out to the press before the Army had the courtesy to tell the soldiers involved

Swaliswan - agree with everything you say. I'm in a nationally recruited "specialist" unit which means we only do a minimum of 19 days per year (many do/did alot more). DH is working abroad right now so I'm on the minimum and was relying on 9 days planned for next March to complete my bounty earning days. So if you have qualified for your bounty in the 1st 6 months of the trg year will you get it, and those that were due to do days in the next 6 months won't? I have a sneaky feeling they are going to have to pay up, at least if you are a regular attender.

I'm in the TA and also an MOD Civil Servant. Double reason why I cannot make any sort of political comment but in any line of work or service the release of this scale of an announcement before any employees have had any inkling of it is awful. It's like a car company suspending production at all its factories and announcing it in the paper.

I do know something about the resource constraints in Whitehall though, and also about the painful way these decisions have to be made in-year. Although I don't work in the finance bit any more I used to write the letters back to members of the public who'd written to their MP with rants/suggestions/concerns. The maths is pretty powerful and with just a little more than a casual glance, the published Departmental Accounts show you where the big wodges of cash go.

And I'm interested to know when we'll hear down the command chain for real! I have a troop of soldiers who will want to know what is happening to their second income (and rightly or wrongly it is definitely considered a second part-time job by most) and I have nothing from above. Furthermore, I've got soldiers mobilised on operations who suspect they'll be facing cuts in hours/salary in their day jobs as well as this.

I gather 20 million is the sum we need to save, how about postponing this home ed budget!

I was in the OTC at University. We had drill two evenings a week, plus weekends training. The wages helped me keep afloat, and although I didn't sign up after Uni, the majority of my fellow OTC did.
I think could damage recruitment, and I totally agree it's very short-sighted.

Has anyone (or their dh/dp) heard anything yet down the chain of command?

If you look on Arrse someone theorises that this is a leak of the worst COA either accidentally or to test the water and see how controversial it would be. Tuesday/Wednesday night is the first possible time the CoC can communicate really isn't it.

Yep, I've had a good look on Arrse. I agree it might be a worst COA as I'm sure I'd have had a holding email from the CO by now? I'm in a nationally recruited unit and we generally deploy straight in to the field (well warm ops room) on Ex with the regulars, we only gather together as a unit twice a year so email is our main means of comms.

DH was told that there was no info yet on sat evening but it's his drill night tonight so maybe he'll find out more then. I really hope that Nationwide isn't going to take too much notice and will still approve our mortgage application today.

My husband had his last paid drill night last night until April.

He has been told that he won't have to do his CFT or APWT bounty tests to qualify for bounty, but he will have to attend next Tuesday night (unpaid) to do a BFT.

They still can attend weekend training (unpaid) if they want.

He also works as civilian storeman in his TA unit - not sure what will happen to the civilian staff if there are no soldiers attending!

Not 100% sure what's going on, but DH is unlikely to be allowed to go on his pot sgts course on friday. This will mean no bounty for him as this was to count as his 'annual camp'. We had our mortgage approved thankfully but now can't afford to do much to our new house for a while because of the lack of TA income. I hope that we can still afford to put the heating in. DH is still to be paid for some drill nights but not all.

Oh that's good/poor in equal measure for you isn't it. Hope things work out with the house.

I am in the very strange situation of being on maternity leave (six months) and due to go back in January. Under the TA maternity policy, they couldn't let me do properly physical training or go anywhere near a rifle once I'd informed them I was pregnant. So I couldn't get any MATTs done in the first three months of the training year. Then my plan was to take six months off, then go back in January and make as much of an effort as possible to do some MATTs and even an annual camp. Even if I didn't achieve them all, maternity is not allowed to disadvantage you for promotion or bounty, just like under other employment law. So with a bit of effort I would go back, do my job (Troop Comd) and show that being a mum doesn't stop you putting the effort in.

However (and I have heard nothing yet, but it would be by email anyway) if there are no training opportunities, where does that leave me? I actually have to go back for 12 months after Mat Leave, because of the rules about pay. What I think will happen is that I "make myself available for training" from January, even though there may be nothing going on, and that counts as having come back to work. I imagine bounty is pretty much out of the question although in the long term it would be really poor if they called it a "failed" bounty year.

Army Briefing Note

Thanks for that.

I'm not sure how DH is going to be given the opportunity to qualify for his bounty though when they've just scrapped his course. He would've done if without being paid so that he could do the course and get the bounty but that wasn't an option open to him.

We really needed his bounty and TA pay generally to pay towards the renovation costs of our new house. We are left living really close to the wire financially

Is anyone else tempted to ask Gordon Brown a question about this tomorrow?

You could as a mrs, but members of the Armed Forces are not allowed to express a political viewpoint in public, under Queen's Regulations. And asking questions on an Army matter direct to an MP/minister counts as going outside the Chain of Command. We AGAI'd a Cpl in my unit for writing to his MP a few months ago - serious stuff.