**British Armed Forces Discussion Thread**

Associate
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Gloucester
I did 22 years and have been out for 6 now. Don't miss it in the slightest.

I still do a fair bit of work on MOD camps and know loads who are still in. Manpower shortages seem to be even worse nowadays than when I was in.
The pension every month is the only reason I stayed in as long as I did :) (And you don't get that any more!)
 
Soldato
Joined
5 Feb 2006
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5,169
I need to do some more homework. I did 17yrs and left in 2007 with a part monthly pension. Was on the 75 pension scheme when left and i'm sure my paperwork (need to find it) said I'd go up to full pension at 55yrs old.

Some rumours say it's changed to 60 or 65 depending on what you where on.

Anyone else know of this?
 
Associate
Joined
24 Dec 2006
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Worcs.
I need to do some more homework. I did 17yrs and left in 2007 with a part monthly pension. Was on the 75 pension scheme when left and i'm sure my paperwork (need to find it) said I'd go up to full pension at 55yrs old.

Some rumours say it's changed to 60 or 65 depending on what you where on.

Anyone else know of this?

Contact the Forces Pension Society.
 
Soldato
Joined
25 Aug 2006
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6,339
I’m still on the same pension I joined with the 75 one as far as I’m aware unless being med discharged affects it ? I never changed whilst in....

'05 was a voluntarily change

'15 was a forced change.

So depends when you left.

MD doesn't effect the pension type, just whether you pay tax on it or not.
 
Soldato
Joined
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Pretty sure it was voluntary.

IIRC it was voluntary for people already in and mandatory for new people just signing up. We had a big old brief about it and how, on the new '05 scheme, unless you were fairly sure you could get to at least C/T (FS for none Tech trades) it was worse than '75 for all those who didn't make that rank. Strangely enough they didn't get a positive sign-up rate to '05 from those already in :D
 
Soldato
Joined
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IIRC it was voluntary for people already in and mandatory for new people just signing up. We had a big old brief about it and how, on the new '05 scheme, unless you were fairly sure you could get to at least C/T (FS for none Tech trades) it was worse than '75 for all those who didn't make that rank. Strangely enough they didn't get a positive sign-up rate to '05 from those already in :D

That's why I stayed on 75.
 
Soldato
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On the Amiga500
IIRC it was voluntary for people already in and mandatory for new people just signing up. We had a big old brief about it and how, on the new '05 scheme, unless you were fairly sure you could get to at least C/T (FS for none Tech trades) it was worse than '75 for all those who didn't make that rank. Strangely enough they didn't get a positive sign-up rate to '05 from those already in :D
N'aww, techs still think a CT is equivalent to FS. I bet you were a career JT and claimed to be an NCO didn't you? ;)
 
Soldato
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N'aww, techs still think a CT is equivalent to FS. I bet you were a career JT and claimed to be an NCO didn't you? ;)

LOL, it was just the 12 years as an NCO (or "enhanced" JT :D) for myself but one thing that did annoy me during my time was that it should have been easy for the RAF to understand that that JT's were more highly trained than the SAC(T)'s that "replaced" them. You can't squeeze 27 months of trade training (9 basic, 18 fitters in the case of my trade) into 18 or less and still yet expect the same quality or depth of knowledge at the end yet some SAC(T)'s were very sensitive about that, not that it was their fault of course, the RAF screwed them. Hell, it's even worse for AMM's who 40+ years ago were called FLM's and all caused by the upper Officer ranks playing the "lets change something for a promotion" game and then the cycle keeps revolving.
 
Soldato
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On the Amiga500
It is sad to see. I'm not a tech trade so I don't fully understand but I do hear a lot of the gripes with that whole shambles. Do you reckon they'll get rid of the T designation all together? Even the CT?
 
Soldato
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Stoke/Norfolk
No, they still need a designator to describe the difference between "half trained" and "fully trained" technicians and, in the tech world at least, the CT kind of sits in a very unique place in a SQN, very roughly described below -

SAC - Had "some" trade training at Cosford, just enough to be semi-useful when they arrive on a SQN and start On Job Training to prepare them for returning to Cosford later - trained by experienced SAC(T)'s and CPL's.
SAC(T) - After finishing their full trade training at Cosford they are now fully trained technicians who carry out the vast majority of everyday jobs.
CPL - Directly supervises the work carried out by SAC(T)'s, carries out the more complex engineering tasks which new SAC(T)'s are unable to yet and is the highest level of "hands on everyday work" technician.
SGT - Mainly an office manager now who is in charge of issuing the jobs/assigning priority to a single trade on a single shift and deals with trade admin (leave, authorisations etc) and is a usually only called on for tech work on highly unique tasks.
C/T - Rectification controller, collates all the jobs required for the SQN that shift and issues all the jobs of the day to the SGT's of every trade and keeping them co-ordinated, is responsible for just the technical work done by every trade on a single shift.
FS - Shift manager, in charge of all the admin done/needed by every trade on a single shift but little to no tech work.

In that rough example the CT role is extremely important where the experience required is higher than a SGT's but it would hurt the admin side of running a SQN if the FS had to do it.

After the SDR of 2000 reduced the RAF's numbers there were still too many CT's left which means that SQN's had to "find" more jobs for all the CT's they had so that "How a SQN works" blurb above became disjointed with CT's having completely random jobs created like "paper work co-ordinator" created or worse they took existing SGT tasks like keeping Auth's upto date etc which really screwed SGT promotions (too many CT's already with no jobs for them so little promotion and now you do less anyway) which then negatively impacted the number of CPL to SGT promotions etc, it was a right cluster-poop when I left at the end of '14. Hopefully by now that CT blockage would have ben cured by retirements, natural wastage etc but for about 15 years it caused all manner of issues.
 
Soldato
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Many CTs got a retention bonus of 20000 to stay for another 3 years and this year they are getting a 1700 quid boost too.

Sgts have nowhere to go and as a result this year's Cpl to Sgt board is gonna be tiny.

Seriously??? Oh FFS, it's like the upper Officer branch haven't learnt from the past 20 years of stupidity that the "Rank Pyramid" doesn't work when it's top heavy with too many CT's. All it does, as you mentioned, is screw SGT's and CPL's who now have nowhere to go due to tiny promotion prospects*** other than leave the RAF in droves, causing even more "brain drain" as it's usually the better guys that get frustrated and leave first and, by screwing two sets of ranks, they're guaranteeing that there will by far fewer "good" people to fill those CT ranks eventually in the future which doesn't bode well for the RAF.

*** - my first CPL to SGT board for Avionics in 2005 was around 85 promotions for that year. In 2014 when I left it was under 20 (may even have been under 15 I think) despite having almost the same amount of people in rank.
 
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