Thread: RIP TA

Top Tips for saving a few bob.
No 1.
Regulars get paid for the hours they are actually at work. So you clock on and off as you enter camp office etc. That is how it works where i am in the world of the bearded war dodging civvies.

No2
Non Deployable = 0 x factor.

No3
Cant pass Pft etc through unfitness not injury = 0 x factor.

Originally Posted by dergeneral

OK, I am not sayin that you are wrong, Saladin, but not so sure that you are thinking along the same lines as people in MB.

I 've never minded being the only bloke marching in step.... :D In fact I'm told that was how I spent most of the colours parade....

Originally Posted by saladin

That LSDI is dead: You can laugh at the old BAOR hacks - but in 1990 you could have got good money on our never deploying in a Desert - and they would have locked you up if you'd seriously suggested NATO forces co-operating with a Russian Airborne Bde in the Balkans ( I do have the tee-shirt...) LSDI is a political tool - Broke or not, no PM is going to tell the Yanks we're giving up swimming with the big boys.

Oh for f*ck's sake ! Read the Defence Planning Assumptions. Whatever YOU believe, the official, much thought about conclusion is that LSDI IS dead, or, at least, is in a coma and we will see any signs of recovery so far ahead of reanimation that there will be ample time to train up everyone from the WRVS upwards in response.

Yes, I know and in theory thats probably right - but will the politicians react when those first warning signs appear? I can hear the swerving and dodging now. " Must give them every encouragement, wrong to appear bellicose.....keep talking" The result will be another bunch of Jocks, this time sent to Antarctica, ripping the sand-filters off the wagons as they pass St Helena. Do you trust the politicians to have the cojones in time ?

This is not going to change. Bleat about "need for a reserve", but even if you are right (and a lot of people in the DIS, DCDC and elsewhere say that you are wrong) you are not going to change the assumptions that currently drive £Bns wortht of investment decisions. So DEAL WITH IT.

Yep. Every chance I have I'll say "The Assumptions are WRONG, the politicians will let us down."

The TA needs to move on.....Continuing to swim with the Big Boys means a CAG, SF (er, Tier 1, regular SF), TLAM, niche J2 etc....the 3rd Loamshires(V) are neither here nor there I am afraid.

Probably right - but until someone comes up with a workable idea - and GCM ain't it - Its a method of turning out troops with some idea, at least, of what the job-spec is from Pte to SO2.

Originally Posted by saladin

Too Narrowly Focussed:

That Herrick is the long-term main effort. Frankly, balls. Its only a few years since I sat at dinner with a very grown up who banged on about being in Iraq for the next 20 years..... Have a look at what the Yanks strategic thinkers are saying - 3 years ? Hang your hat on learning colloquial Pashtu at your peril. Farsi might be more useful, but the next nonsense will be somewhere completely unexpected and at any scale.

Again - you miay well have a point here. But on the other hand I'd refer you to the CDS message about what "Main Effort" for the MOD means at the moment. If you have not read it I commend it to you. It's pretty damn clear.

I did read it - but to tailor everything to "The war" such that it cannot easily flex to summat else would be barking, Sir.

Unless MoD intends throwing a LOT of money at it or the Govt is willing to take the political flak of harder employee protection/compulsory mobilisation accept that the Reserve will only provide a mix of the low-grade bods listed above leavened with some quality blokes who just happen to have a bit of flexibility this year.

Put a lot more effort into identifying what skills are available and what are needed. No-one in the Regular Army seems to have a problem with TA Doctors - Which is odd. If its an ongoing requirement the Regular RAMC should surely be expanded ? The "TA Medics fill the gap" piece is very BAOR surely ? The TA also has a heap of civil engineers, local Govt Admin, and Marketing types so the TA can certainly help with the Build bit and, despite what you say, 3rd Loamshires (V) can probably do the Hold piece as well, and provide some of the the mentor teams. We already backfill a heap of lower grade admin & training jobs in the UK through FTRS.

As I said to RF. Think sensibly about what is required - sense check it with some solid TA types - NOT just the red tab career pole-climbers - and ask the TA to deliver. I guarentee we will.

Simplest thing to implement would be genuine intelligent mobilisation on a compulsory basis mixed with some sop to the employers like an NI rebate for all TA employees.

Genuine connections to associated Regular units/formations would be next, not the invite to the cocktail party once in a blue moon that currently happens.

Originally Posted by FUGAX

Top Tips for saving a few bob.
No 1.
Regulars get paid for the hours they are actually at work. So you clock on and off as you enter camp office etc. That is how it works where i am in the world of the bearded war dodging civvies. See below

No2
Non Deployable = 0 x factor. Actually agree to some extent and so do many many regs.

No3
Cant pass Pft etc through unfitness not injury = 0 x factor.

Also agree, but also believe it should be a bounty qualifying test n all, as well as APWT.

Hours we work. On average i work 50 hours, not including duties. The average is probably 37.5 hrs for most jnr soldiers

I spend around 6-8 weeks of each year on exercise, 24hrs a day 7 days a week.

I did 3 op tours in a 3 year period, 505 days 24/7, i think my overtime pay would be slightly more than what i actually got.

We are paid a comparable wage to a civilian counterpart, so if i do a 9 hour standard day i get £12 per hour , - my x factor, i prob get about £9 ph, which is probably what a civvy doing my job would get. i do at least one weekend duty (fri-mon) every 2 months, more if companies are away.

However if i am made to work, or chose to work longer hours (as i am a diligent person :D ), i don't get an increase of pay.

I think some young soldiers are on about £4 ph, which is well below the nat average and minimum working wage.

Its swings and round abouts.

Also i doubt my civilian counterpart has to be contactable 24/7, can be called in off holiday and told you are deploying in 4 days, grab your gat your on the ranges in 1/2 an hour, we don't know how long your going for, it may be 2 weeks it maybe longer etc etc

I know most of the TA posters are aware of this already.

Crunchie
Its clear from his first point that he has no real idea about the worlkoad of Regular soldiers. So you get of early some fridays and wednesday afternoons? So what; as you point out, when you are working you work all the hours the CO tells you.

@RF - there is a diference between fixed and floating costs. I would fully expect that the rather high costs per day for a TA soldier include aportionment for eg. property costs, NRPS pay, clerks, etc etc etc

BB

Originally Posted by Bravo_Bravo

@RF - there is a diference between fixed and floating costs. I would fully expect that the rather high costs per day for a TA soldier include aportionment for eg. property costs, NRPS pay, clerks, etc etc etc

Indeed - the "Variable Cost per Reservist" is £4,563 for the TA - quite a bit higher than the RNR, marginally higher than the RMR and significantly lower than the RAuxAF. On the other hand, the "Overhead Cost per Reservist", for the TA, is £10,678 per head - more than three times than for the RNR and nearly double that for the RAuxAF.

I would note that although the RMR cost is quite high (£7k), the report reckons that the RN have bodged this ...

So measures to reduce costs???

Make the TAC's into hybrid community centres? I remember TAC's being used for other things in the late 80's, surely doing that again serves numerous purposes, KAPE, TA recruitment, integtration with local community, extra source of cash.

Reduce number of bars in TAC's, as a rough guesstimate I reckon the local one has around 10 (SF, RMR, Arty, RNR, RSigs, OTC, officers, SNCO's, etc)... and number of co-located drill halls (at least 3 in the example I know).

G1/G4 travel/admin costs - stores for TA to be issued centrally regardless of cap badge/regiment. I'd expect this would also reduce manpower costs (1xSQMS/CQMS and storeman to serve multiple sub units).

Similar for recruit training, so one bus from each city not several.

Stop pointless one minute wonder ideas for the TA, they take days/weeks/months to decide, years to implement and never reach fruitition as we're back on the latest new idea.

But moving TAC's out of town centre is a false saving, they aren't shopping centres. It removes them from the community. What this report ( http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/F2C31...f_reserves.pdf ) fails to mention about Nottingham and having out of town (RTMC) TAC's is the number of local recruits who go to other TAC's, that are more convenienty located on transport routes (the Tesco's opposite has a similar problem with shoppers from the local town going to either ASDA or Tesco's)
is

BB - you are right, there are huge overhead costs which could be reduced through rationalised estate. but to do so endangers the footprint. The most expensive bit of the TA is the Regular manpower assigned to the TA!

Saladin - I have an open mind, but do not see the VFM in the current set up. You, however, seem fixated on having a huge reserve for the just in case. That is unsustainable.

I have suggested throughout that the TACOS has to change, that the TA has to be prepared to do more on current and future ops and that the LSDI structures are inappropriate. TA people on here have said 'TACOS are fine, we have civvy jobs so cannot do any more and what happens if we need to do an LSDI?'

Dr_Evil has suggested ways ahead, Polar is questinong the VFM of hunderds of TA centres and many have acknowledged that C2 is wrong.

The facts as I see them are we cannot afford the Army (both bits) we currently have. If the Regular Army had it's way it would probably dispense with the TA altogether and have a big enough regular Army - this is not heresy, merely a statement that if you have to use all your assets for the current fight, you might as well spend all your cash on the current fight, because ther eis not enough to fund the current fight and keep a standing uncommitted reserve. But it can't, so to balance what we are given as a budget against what we need to do, the Army will have to make more use of all assets including the TA. This premise requires the TA to change.

HERRICK is the main effort at present and we are designing the future Army for future similar unpleasantness, taking risk against the once every ten years intervention. People might not like that, but they should at least acknowledge it.

Does anyone really, really think the US gives two hoots that we cannot put an armoured divison in the field anymore?

There are lots of people thinking very hard about future TA roles - they will likely pick up more tasks than they do at present and be required to produce people more often. If we cannot increase the utility, the budgeteers will ask why we have it at all?

I have attracted lots of flak on here (some of it entirely fair) but my basic premise is this - the TA as it stands is unsustainable, it must change. if you disagree, fair enough. let's reconvene in five years and compare notes. I am betting on a 20 - 30% reduction with a higher percentage than at present used on ops, with a Regular Army that has reduced by 10 - 15%.

Originally Posted by really?_fascinating

I am betting on a 20 - 30% reduction with a higher percentage than at present used on ops, with a Regular Army that has reduced by 10 - 15%.

The only thing you get with less is less.

Given that the variable costs (i.e. MTDs) of the TA are so low, I would like to see a massive enhancement in the size of the TA leading to greater utilisation on ops.

MSR

MSR - I would like to see a huge increase in the Regular Army and the TA, but it ain't gonna happen. Barring economc miracle there is no chance of the TA increasing in size!

The most logical path to tread is to reduce the Regs and increase the TA, because TA cost less. Regs become a smaller pool with responsiblity for training TA. TA would become more professional, as a result. It's an extension of the Regt'l "twinning" which is already in place.

It won't happen though - if you were an employer, would you want someone who goes off on tour every few years, with the cost and lack of continuity it brings?

To save costs, we should ditch the bounty system, or at least reduce it. It should be replaced by the award of tax free lump sums on completion of tours.

Did you enjoy half term?

Originally Posted by redfibee

The most logical path to tread is to reduce the Regs and increase the TA, because TA cost less. Regs become a smaller pool with responsiblity for training TA. TA would become more professional, as a result. It's an extension of the Regt'l "twinning" which is already in place.

It won't happen though - if you were an employer, would you want someone who goes off on tour every few years, with the cost and lack of continuity it brings?

To save costs, we should ditch the bounty system, or at least reduce it. It should be replaced by the award of tax free lump sums on completion of tours.

Recommend reading some of the stuff knocking about about the IDF and their recent performance. Goes against what you are proposing.

I think he is talking out of a bodily orifice not normally associated with convesation.

Originally Posted by Bravo_Bravo

I think he is talking out of a bodily orifice not normally associated with convesation.

Bravo - I concur !