Strikes me as bonkers

Frank the tank

The armed forces are having to issue p45's to thousands of personel,whilst simultainiously running an add campaign for new recruits. :?

My mates lad he's in his late twenties and an RAF trained/educated electronics engineer has just been shown the door. What's that all about then?

daviesee

They need people who will blindly follow orders.
Once you get to around the 30 mark you start to think "awkward" questions.

The forces need clever, skilled people to make it all work behind the scenes but young & impressionable is more apt at the front line.
Note:- I doff my hat to anyone who actually serves and I think there is a lot of truth in that Jack Nicholson speech in A Few Good Men.

To directly answer your question though - Cuts. And back to bankers.......

vitesse169

Th quick answer is - the forces are a bottom fed organisation. You cannot join as a Sergeant or a Major, You join as a private and work your way up. Otherwise in 2 years time they would be even more top heavy with supervisory ranks. Also, as a cynic, I would say that a 1st year private is cheaper to employ than a 5th or 6th year private....!

zippypablo

vitesse169 wrote:

Th quick answer is - the forces are a bottom fed organisation. You cannot join as a Sergeant or a Major, You join as a private and work your way up. Otherwise in 2 years time they would be even more top heavy with supervisory ranks. Also, as a cynic, I would say that a 1st year private is cheaper to employ than a 5th or 6th year private....!

Apart from the Officers who join at that level instead of ever being a Private or Sergeant.
That level being 2nd Lieutenant in the Army

rebs

It's the regular full time forces which are being cut.

the requitment campaigns you are seeing are for the Reserver and Territorial Army Forces. Plan appears to be smaller regular force with the Reserves playing an active rule when and where required.

Doesn't strike me as bonkers at all....

Cleat Eastwood

The less people we have who see violence as a solution the better.

Frank the tank

rebs wrote:

It's the regular full time forces which are being cut.

the requitment campaigns you are seeing are for the Reserver and Territorial Army Forces. Plan appears to be smaller regular force with the Reserves playing an active rule when and where required.

Doesn't strike me as bonkers at all....

If that is the case I can't go along with that policy.

Absolutely no disrepect to members of the TA but I would sooner our national borders/interest be in the hands of full time professionals rather than weekend warriors.

schlepcycling

I've always wondered about this too. Doesn't employment law prohibit a company from making someone redundant and simultaneously recruiting for the same position?. Doesn't the law require the company to show that they are getting rid of that job function rather than a specific person. For example a company is reducing it's plumbers from 10 to 6 due to the economic downturn can't then be recruiting plumbers at the same time.

Does this not apply to the armed forces?.

daviesee

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

The less people we have who see violence as a solution the better.

"You can’t handle the truth!
Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to."

rebs

Frank the tank wrote:

rebs wrote:

It's the regular full time forces which are being cut.

the requitment campaigns you are seeing are for the Reserver and Territorial Army Forces. Plan appears to be smaller regular force with the Reserves playing an active rule when and where required.

Doesn't strike me as bonkers at all....

If that is the case I can't go along with that policy.

Absolutely no disrepect to members of the TA but I would sooner our national borders/interest be in the hands of full time professionals rather than weekend warriors.

TA and other reserver forces have been very much apart of active operations British Forces are engaged with. They are trained up to the same level as any regular (albeit training can take much longer). Think you'll be supraised how active reserve forces have been for the past few years.

It's possible to make the judgement that someone holding down a normal job as well as serving in the TA will have more life experience compared to a regular soldier who have served in the forced strait out of school.

Kerguelen

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

The less people we have who see violence as a solution the better.

I think it's the politicians who see violence as solution, not the armed forces. Case in point: rank file opinion in the Army was dead set against the Iraq invasion - see http://www.arrse.co.uk/intelligence-cel ... -cnut.html for some possibly NSFW opinions.

CiB

Frank why not just do a generic thread titled "I see the Tories have done something and I therefore declare them to be a bunch of c***s", and be done with it?

Then we can get on with looking at burds wearing togs.

hulla the hulla

daviesee wrote:

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

The less people we have who see violence as a solution the better.

"You can’t handle the truth!
Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to."

questionable film but great speach from Nicholson - like it, like it a lot !

Cleat Eastwood

Kerguelen wrote:

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

The less people we have who see violence as a solution the better.

I think it's the politicians who see violence as solution, not the armed forces. Case in point: rank file opinion in the Army was dead set against the Iraq invasion - see http://www.arrse.co.uk/intelligence-cel ... -cnut.html for some possibly NSFW opinions.

Indeed, a good point, well made. It's a shame that whether you're a soldier, a politician, taxi driver or a chef - at some point our deep knowledge that we are all one under the skin gets lost and distorted. I firmly believe love is the way.

dodgerdog

Fundamentally it is about the demographics and managing the career and trade structures to ensure that there is not a unstable supply/demand relationship. The differing services have taken differing approaches but they learnt in the last round of cuts that the worst thing to do was stop the inflow of recruits as re-establishing the recruitment pipeline as a credible option. Additionally the outlow and inflow do not match in terms of skills/competencies.

Frank the tank

CiB wrote:

Frank why not just do a generic thread titled "I see the Tories have done something and I therefore declare them to be a bunch of c***s", and be done with it?

Then we can get on with looking at burds wearing togs.

I wasn't actually blaming the tories, I was just questioning the thinking behind policy.

Redhog14

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

The less people we have who see violence as a solution the better.

That's like, philosophy man! loving your work.

Tom Dean

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

Kerguelen wrote:

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

The less people we have who see violence as a solution the better.

I think it's the politicians who see violence as solution, not the armed forces. Case in point: rank file opinion in the Army was dead set against the Iraq invasion - see http://www.arrse.co.uk/intelligence-cel ... -cnut.html for some possibly NSFW opinions.

Indeed, a good point, well made. It's a shame that whether you're a soldier, a politician, taxi driver or a chef - at some point our deep knowledge that we are all one under the skin gets lost and distorted. I firmly believe love is the way.

Someone should have told Saddam...

Smokin Joe

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

The less people we have who see violence as a solution the better.

You've never been a West Ham fan then, Cleat?

OffTheBackAdam

We've more Admirals than ships, more Brigadiers than brigades.
Of course, they should be clearing out huge numbers of beaurocrats from the MoD, but the unions would be bleating about that.

bagpusscp

The floats bobbing a bit.......Tight lines.....

Frank the tank

When the bait is that obvious nobody bites.

Nairnster

Tell me about it.

I was made redundant from the RAF (as an SAC Tech Propulsion)in 2007 in the last Tranche of redundancies.

As I walked off camp, massive banner on the fence asking people to join. Its a cycle which happens every few years, although recently the redundancies have been on a much bigger scale.

Bigger question to me would be why most of the Forces personnel redundancies being made are compulsory, whereas the civilian staff were offered voluntary redundancy as the first option.

daviesee

Here is a point -

Legally speaking, it is not a person that is made redundant, it is the position.

Therefore the forces are breaking all sorts of rules to make a serving person "redundant" and then promote another person into their position.
Then again, anyone questioning the situation will no doubt be "set straight", or "the powers that be" have the answers pre-prepared.
Doesn't matter either way. Something stinks.