ARmy Rumour SErvice

Originally Posted by Sangreal

Interesting. So a TA with about a sixth of the training (365/60) costs a fifth of the price of a Regular?

Doesn't sound like value for money to me!

How many days of the year is a Regular actually training? As it's certainly not 365. Chop out weekends, and that's down to 261, remove public holidays and we're down to 253. Leave is 30 days so we're down to 223 days a year available for normal training. 223 as against 60 doesn't look so bad. As for the 60 days, I'd make a rough guess of about 10 MTD's that get used up in just getting to and from Training locations.

Originally Posted by Kitmarlowe

How many days of the year is a Regular actually training? As it's certainly not 365. Chop out weekends, and that's down to 261, remove public holidays and we're down to 253. Leave is 30 days so we're down to 223 days a year available for normal training. 223 as against 60 doesn't look so bad. As for the 60 days, I'd make a rough guess of about 10 MTD's that get used up in just getting to and from Training locations.

Don't start me on the pay issue.

1/365 per day....so I'd have to work 7 days a week to match even the most basic pay rate of a regular? When I work 8 hours, I get a days pay. When I work 6 hours, I get 3/4 days pay, and when I work 10 hours, I get a days pay - hello?

and then there's the x factor, allowances, claims, etc etc aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh

Excuse me?

TA pay needs a serious review.

Originally Posted by Kitmarlowe

How many days of the year is a Regular actually training? As it's certainly not 365. Chop out weekends, and that's down to 261, remove public holidays and we're down to 253. Leave is 30 days so we're down to 223 days a year available for normal training. 223 as against 60 doesn't look so bad. As for the 60 days, I'd make a rough guess of about 10 MTD's that get used up in just getting to and from Training locations.

These arguments are flawed from the outset as they make the wild assertion that a TA with 60 MTDs under his belt produces the same 'product' as a Regular and is thus value for money. What exactly is the training progression you propose to conduct with these 60 MTDs? If we consider for a moment some typical training events a Regular BG in C-FORM will undertake during HFT there is simply no way that the gap in training can be closed; CAST incl PACEX (7 days), CATT (5 days), Ex PT/AT (40 days), Firing Camps (5 - 20 days), CT 1 trg, career courses etc. Oops! You've run out of days.

So, which bits are you going to leave out? Why? How will you mitigate the resultant risk to capability?

Originally Posted by Kitmarlowe

How many days of the year is a Regular actually training? As it's certainly not 365. Chop out weekends, and that's down to 261, remove public holidays and we're down to 253. Leave is 30 days so we're down to 223 days a year available for normal training. 223 as against 60 doesn't look so bad. As for the 60 days, I'd make a rough guess of about 10 MTD's that get used up in just getting to and from Training locations.

Kit,

Have you ever worked in a regular army unit on a normal working rotation? I am guessing not or you would not have posted your wild guesswork above. The life of a soldier consists of pre-deployment training, tour, post tour leave then routine life before the next round of PDT starts. Routine life includes trade training and exercises (Pl level, Coy, Bn and Bde), RAAT tasks, guards, duties, maintenance tasks etc, etc. These are rarely fitted neatly into the Monday 9-5 you seem to think.

Out of 3.5 years at Regimental duty, over 35% of that time was classed as nights out of bed for LSSA purposes. You then add in exercises of less than 10 days duration, weekend duties, Sunday departs for Monday starts etc. I probably averaged less than 2 completely free weekends per month over that time.

We certainly had late starts on Mondays, early knock off on Friday and sports afternoon on Wednesday when we were in camp. However, as we were only really in camp for a maximum of 1/3 of the year, I don't think it was too much to treat ourselves to.

Originally Posted by MrTracey

Don't start me on the pay issue.

1/365 per day....so I'd have to work 7 days a week to match even the most basic pay rate of a regular? When I work 8 hours, I get a days pay. When I work 6 hours, I get 3/4 days pay, and when I work 10 hours, I get a days pay - hello?

and then there's the x factor, allowances, claims, etc etc aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh

Excuse me?

TA pay needs a serious review.

A few realities for you if I may:

1. It's not that odd that you'd have to work 7 days a week to get paid the same as a regular because, for a regular, that's pretty much the deal. A regular can be expected to work every day of the week at the CoC's pleasure. I agree that the definition of what a ‘day’s pay’ is could be reviewed – hourly rates of pay may be the way ahead.

2. As for the x-factor I think the TA should get the full whack.....when deployed (oh, you do though don’t you!). When not mobilised I don’t think the TA should get any x-factor as normal TA Service does not meet the x-factor criteria sufficiently. To quote the MOD:
‘The X-Factor is an adjustment to military pay in recognition of the special conditions and unique demands of service life, including danger, discipline and separation from families, experienced by members of the Armed Forces compared to those in the civilian sector.’
Non-deployed TA Service does not create any of these ‘special conditions’ in the same regard as regular service and thus you should be lucky with the percentage you have.

If though, Mr_T, as a member of the TA you are willing and able to deploy (with less than 12 hours notice) for two weeks to another country at any time during the year then I will wholeheartedly support parity in pay.

Originally Posted by Sangreal

[FONT=Arial][FONT=Arial]These arguments are flawed from the outset as they make the wild assertion that a TA with 60 MTDs under his belt produces the same 'product' as a Regular ]

Nope, never made that assertion. I caveated my comments that extra time would be required for mobilisation. I assumed folk would realise that was to cover the training gap. I used 60 days per year 'cos thats enough to do some decent work. 27 is not.

Anyway, my intent was not to provoke a discusson on 1 Blankshires sports afternoon policy or the vagaries of the pay system - although some deep-seated prejudices have surfaced as a result....

The point I was trying to make is that - if you accept that the product will have an identifiable training gap that will require plugged before deployment - an investment in part-time reservists has the potential to retain capbilities and generate significantly larger capacities - in the medium term - than if all the dosh was spent on the standing army. What I was hoping for was some rational discussion on what sort of relative size that slice should be.

Can we retrieve the cuddly toys from the corners and quit sniping at each other about friday afternoons and X factor ?