Thread: PAYD

Originally Posted by Bottleosmoke

85 pence for a very tasty goulash and rice at 9 Regt RLC.

You cant go wrong!

costs a fiver for a 5kg drum. Any moron can boil a pan. Probably explains why the cookhouse in St Georges barracks in Bicester is so sh1te. No qualified chef works in that cookhouse. That was told to me by the Sgts Mess manager

Originally Posted by egg_custard

Grumpy Git: wrote "In some camps, OR's are disadvantaged when compared to Officers & Sergeants Mess members, who are often permitted to put the cost of meals on their mess bills which they pay at the end of the month (so they eat for free all month). OR's have to pay at a till as they eat."

Some people view this as a privilege of rank and something to aspire to!

Its a privilege of rank to not pay for your food up front? What a load of bollocks. I doubt very much if there are any admin cases in the sgt mess who are causing their SSM/Duty SNCO work by filling out hungry soldier chits (and according to some people AGAI forms), yet the young dumb toms don't have a choice. You said people couldn't use their ID cards as a form of payment because of security yet the messes manage to add the food on to mess bills and PAYD companies still honour hungry soldier chits, is it not just a case of the PAYD companies not being arsed when they are presented with a case that would massively improve the system.

The Civvy Company should have a Service Level Agreement (SLA) and Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) which they have to meet, if they do not meet these than they can be relaesed from their Contract.

MoD runs the Contracts with Sodexho (I believe) and their French fu*k em off.

Magic

Originally Posted by egg_custard

Grumpy Git: wrote "In some camps, OR's are disadvantaged when compared to Officers & Sergeants Mess members, who are often permitted to put the cost of meals on their mess bills which they pay at the end of the month (so they eat for free all month). OR's have to pay at a till as they eat."

Some people view this as a privilege of rank and something to aspire to!

E-C, in you second post you claimed to be:

Someone charged with looking after the welfare of our soldiers and their families!

and yet you simply respond to this "Mess privilege" issue with an outdated, ridiculous response that not having to pay for food as you eat it (i.e in reality, to opt out of PAYD) is something to aspire to - I don't think so. You need a realtiy check, the young soldiers need more looking after than the Mess Members.... So if you are someone who is charged with looking after the welfare of our soldiers, start looking after their welfare..... and level the playing field.

Originally Posted by GrumpyGit

Originally Posted by egg_custard

Grumpy Git: wrote "In some camps, OR's are disadvantaged when compared to Officers & Sergeants Mess members, who are often permitted to put the cost of meals on their mess bills which they pay at the end of the month (so they eat for free all month). OR's have to pay at a till as they eat."

Some people view this as a privilege of rank and something to aspire to!

E-C, in you second post you claimed to be:

Someone charged with looking after the welfare of our soldiers and their families!

and yet you simply respond to this "Mess privilege" issue with an outdated, ridiculous response that not having to pay for food as you eat it (i.e in reality, to opt out of PAYD) is something to aspire to - I don't think so. You need a realtiy check, the young soldiers need more looking after than the Mess Members.... So if you are someone who is charged with looking after the welfare of our soldiers, start looking after their welfare..... and level the playing field.

Like taking money out of their wages for what they eat, before or after the fact.

If before and you want to do the whole PAYD thing, treat it a bit like a utility bill direct debit and give them quarterly or annual credits/debits.

If after it is what the messes do, sign for your meal and pay for it at the end of the month. In the case of the soldiers by an automatic debit.

It could be done if the whole thing had the Toms welfare in mind instead of the contractors profits

Well heres a nice contentious issue for us, Since when did a core meal become a "chefs special" and thus qualify them to charge £2.50 for the privellage, of what normaly would have been served as a core meal option!

The standards are slipping, the chefs/tillworkers/managers blame everyone but themselves for their downfalls.

Healthy meals, just dont happen! very rarely have i been in the cookhouse to be presented with a choice of veg, that isnt a straight out mix. The standards over the last 8 months or so have dropped dramaticly!

But lo and behold. the day we have a visit from the top, the food is of an unobjectionable nature.

WRT someones comment about cooking in the block, lets take an hypothetical example of,

Singlies live in block, block has no provision for the preperation/cooking of own food, cookhouse is appalling, nearest town with food ammenities is 14 miles away. edit to add: cooking is forbidden in the block too!

where does that leave us for choice of where to eat?

And then you have the monopoly of londis/spar/naffi - have the managers been to tesco recently, and looked at how bloody much they are charging for simple comodoties, such as shower gel!

Sodexo - Go home!

you're from 14 and I claim my prize!!!

Forgive me for being a bit old fashioned here, I did leave before this new PAYD was implemented.

One of the duties of the Orderly Officer was to visit the cookhouse and check the standard of the food being served. If the food was poor then this was formally reported up the CoC as part of their report. I can honestly say I never had any (serious) complaints when I was a customer in the cookhouse, or later in my career when I was asking the soldiers if they had any problems.

Do these checks still happen? If not, why not? Soldiers like to grumble, that's a given, but it is up to their CoC to ensure that they are being properly looked after, and valid concerns looked into.

It's a bit rough if the SNCOs and Officers are sat in their respective messes thinking 'I'm all right Jack' while they fill in a chit for good quality food. The responsibility for your troops does not end at knocking off time.

Perhaps, rather than going along with studies into how much we can fleece soldiers for poor quality food, we should be looking into getting them value for the money they already pay and making sure they get everything they pay for?

Then again, this could just be the ramblings of someone who just doesn't understand the problem?

Go to the Catterick Garrison Sgts Mess and you pay for your meal at the till nothing goes on mess bills.

Originally Posted by Scarlet_and_Grey

It's a bit rough if the SNCOs and Officers are sat in their respective messes thinking 'I'm all right Jack' while they fill in a chit for good quality food. The responsibility for your troops does not end at knocking off time.

A rather large amount of SNCO used to eat in the main cookhouse rather than their mess (because the Junior ranks had it better) in Abingdon, so I doubt it much of a 'I'm all right Jack' for them.

Originally Posted by GrumpyGit

In some camps, OR's are disadvantaged when compared to Officers & Sergeants Mess members, who are often permitted to put the cost of meals on their mess bills which they pay at the end of the month (so they eat for free all month). OR's have to pay at a till as they eat.

Probably because messes have always had a mess bill system and having to employ a till operator for the limited throughput is not cost effective.

Originally Posted by pombsen-armchair-warrior

Originally Posted by The_Snail

Call me thick, but why are our slop jockeys working for Sodexho?

They work with Sodexho, and other PAYD providers, for one simple reason - they need somewhere to work in between op tours.

And their op tours are being more and more limited by the use of contractors on ops who don't come under the manning cap.

Fair enough Stacker.

I must say, when I looked at the hotplate in the cookhouse I quite often did so with jelousy as it was better than I was going to get later in the Mess. Same goes with the accomodation, it's not all moonlight and roses in the messes (but I never regretted getting out of multi man rooms).

I think the point I was trying to make (not well perhaps) was that if soldiers are getting poor food then it is up to the Seniors/Officers to ensure that their concerns are raised for them. In the messes you will normally have a messing member and or SLIM who can raise your concerns. It also amazes me that we have allowed a system to develop where there is a requirement for 'hungry soldier chits'. When PAYD was being discussed it was a recognised fact that towards the end of the month juniors would run out of money. No ifs or buts, they would. I'm sure the presentations I saw all had glossy pictures of soldiers paying with cards that could be topped up or payed off later? As I say, I left before it became a reality.

Originally Posted by Horridlittleman

Originally Posted by GrumpyGit

In some camps, OR's are disadvantaged when compared to Officers & Sergeants Mess members, who are often permitted to put the cost of meals on their mess bills which they pay at the end of the month (so they eat for free all month). OR's have to pay at a till as they eat.

Probably because messes have always had a mess bill system and having to employ a till operator for the limited throughput is not cost effective.

Hardly free Grumpy, but I get your point.

Due to the smaller numbers, messes don't cook and hope people turn up. Breakfast/Lunch was always requested on a chit in writing (then cooked to order) and I always had to advance book in for evening meal so I guess that system leant itself to PAYD and the billing system was easy. I'm not sure I buy the 'not economically viable' argument though. I never paid cash at the bar, but there was usually someone stood there ready to take my money if required.

We should include FREE scoff as part of the TOS for singlies, we are fed free on Ops and in the field it is easy. It costs to monitor, police and collect PAYD, all that is recovered from any payback to the units (who cares about that anyway ?). Peanuts a day to provide and a good recruiting tool.

Bean stealers & pads who want to eat it then pay a reasonable amount to reflect the cost of eating in local restuarants set by the QM - you won't see many of them after that then.