MEMORANDUM FROM AIRWAVES (OCTOBER 2000)
1. Airwaves, the Communication Channel for
RAF Families, was established to provide an independent and confidential
voice for the families of persons serving in the RAF, and to initiate
strategies and influence policies affecting them. We welcome the
opportunity to present to this inquiry.
2. In considering what the Armed Forces
are doing to provide conditions of service for personnel and their
families which can attract and retain the people they require,
I have referred to the RAF Strategy for People, the RAF Families
Survey, Focus group findings, discussions with the Air Member
for Personnel's Liaison Team, and issues gathered by our own representatives
and reported to us on a monthly basis.
3. Pay. The growing awareness of the role
of the AFPRB is important in reassuring Service personnel that
their financial needs are fairly and adequately considered, but
whilst pay does not appear to be an area of dissatisfaction generally,
many families do claim Working Families Tax Credit, and particularly
on their return from overseas can experience financial hardship.
Nearly half of the officers' wives and almost three quarters of
the wives of junior ranks responding to the Families survey claimed
they needed to work for financial reasons.
4. Allowances. In spite of an upgraded system
of allowances, many families feel financially penalized if the
serving member is sent on detachment. Increased free phone time
and the availability of travel warrants, although important in
maintaining family links, do not make up for increased costs in
areas such as childcare, transport (which, if it is public transport,
is usually high cost and low frequency), or for having to give
up ones' job in order to take on the parenting single handed,
at a time when offspring are often more demanding. Allowances
are a hugely complex area in which many service personnel as well
as their families find themselves in the dark. So many areas of
our lives are covered by allowances that the possibilities for
lack of current, effective information are boundless. Clarification
in this area would go a long way to removing perceived inequalities,
and I am aware that personnel from Service Funds and Welfare at
RAF Innsworth are currently examining ways of making families
more aware of what is available to them, as are we.
5. Charges affecting families in the RAF
relate principally to accommodation. Those made for accommodation
managed by the Defence Housing Executive are usually considered
to be satisfactory, given the perceived poor standard of the majority
of Service Families Accommodation.
6. The area of Pensions and Compensation
is not often raised with Airwaves. The value of the pension package
however is definitely seen as an important contributory factor
in overall satisfaction with pay.
7. Training. Many families see the loss
of the Education Officer, as with the loss of the Families Officer,
as an erosion of community support. We are often asked why it
is not possible for spouses to have access to training or further
education courses on station. Few spouses taking up courses in
their local area do so with much confidence that their lifestyle
will permit them to complete them (if indeed there is transport
to get them there). Just as the Service person looks at training
as integral to their role, not only as the means by which they
can improve their present capabilities, but also as long term
insurance (hence the need for recognizable qualifications), so
spouses are increasingly looking for some kind of personal development
to balance what is often seen as the stagnation of their career.
The Interactive Learning Centres (non RAF administered) already
present on some Stations would offer an opportunity to make the
most of current distance learning options if their use could be
extended to families, and we understand that the RAF is currently
introducing a network of Learning Centres which will be open to
families.
8. Education already examined by the Service
Families Task Force, continues to feature prominently in our dealings
with families. Access to the school of choice is hampered by the
mobility inherent in the lifestyle. Undoubtedly, as with healthcare,
access is more difficult in areas where the situation is also
generally worse for the civilian population, however moving possibly
every two years can lead to not only obvious learning disruption
but to a child regularly finding admission only to those schools
not favoured by the civilian population. The RAF has made efforts
to arrange postings to coincide with the beginning of the school
year, but this is not always possible, and difficulties in housing
exacerbate the situation. Further improvements in this area would
seem to be outside the scope of the MoD, and Airwaves is pursuing
this with the SFTF.
9. Accommodation continues to be an area
of huge discontent. Families have been very disheartened by the
slippage in date for the upgrade programme, and many see it as
an indicator of the priority given to family issues by the MoD
and indeed the Government. More worryingly for DHE is that people
tell us that they have no faith in anything told them regarding
accommodation, and until major inroads are made on upgrading SFA
and in improving maintenance, I believe this will continue to
be the case. Whilst we are aware that the Single Service representatives
are continuing to push DHE on these issues, it is the provision
of guaranteed funding which would seem to be the driver, and not
entirely within the control of the DHE.
10. The removal of the Families Officer
and introduction of Regional Allocations Offices is viewed as
a retrograde step, the suitability of allocation being hampered
by a lack of local knowledge.
11. Families Policy/Service Families Task
Force. As part of its' vision statement, the RAF aspires to "place
people at the centre of the RAF's plans", and we are pleased
by the recognition, at the highest levels, of the support given
to the Service by the families if its uniformed members. We believe
that the RAF is making genuine efforts to improve both its understanding
of the needs of families and the methods by which it can communicate
with them, and Airwaves is pleased to take part in this process.
12. Airwaves recognises that, just as provision
for families varies throughout the Air Force, so does requirement
vary depending on location. Throughout the RAF, families have
usually been able to take advantage of some level of pre school
provision, but thanks to the generous donation from the RAF Benevolent
Fund, areas of specific need will be targeted for improved facilities.
One area that is increasingly brought to us is the lack of facilities
for teenagers, and we would like to see the RAF address this.
13. The success of any Families Policy and
of the SFTF will be judged by families not on the efforts made,
but by their results. People who have benefited from successful
Task Force outcomes on JSA and student loans, for example, bear
witness to the commitment to improving conditions for military
families, making it vitally important that the existence and role
of the SFTF be promulgated more widely. If the reason for having
a Families Policy is to aid retention, then policy must be such
that the "lifestyle gap" which many families perceive,
is removed, or is compensated for. It is not enough that measures
already exist, or will be introduced, to improve conditions. They
must be widely known and easily accessed, whether the serving
spouse is away or not. The RAF already has a system for identifying
a Point of Contact for families where the service person is on
detachment, but equally the area of community welfare and the
local enactment of family friendly policies should be the job
of identified, uniformed personnel. Support at the top is vital,
but the people with whom the families deal with on a day-to-day
basis are at Station level, and it may be that the time has come
for some Station personnel to take a wider view of their role.
14. Facilitating returning to civilian life.
The only criticism we are starting to hear about the resettlement
package is that it takes account of the serving person only. The
majority of spouses recognise the fundamental incompatibility
between supporting accompanied service and their own career aspirations
and acknowledge that it is outside the powers of the RAF to resolve
this. One way of recognising the support given by the family to
the Service would be to include resettlement measures for spouses
in the package.
15. The blessings of a period of sustained
peace mean that for the civilian population, the life of a member
of the Armed Forces would seem to be easier; their needs no different
from the rest of the population, the importance of their role
downgraded. This could not be further from the truth. Service
Personnel are proud to serve their country, as their families
are to support them, but performing a vital humanitarian role
abroad must not be at the cost, either financial or emotional,
of those families. If indeed a high level of separated service
is to be a feature of life in the Armed Forces for the foreseeable
future, then new recruits must know what is to be asked of them.
Furthermore, those currently serving, whether on detachment, or
at home coping with the strains separated service creates there,
must be confident that family support does not founder through
lack of funding.
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