ARmy Rumour SErvice

I have to say that the HR centre of excellence has played a blinder on this one.

There must be a whole host of Inf Majs out there who wish they'd never applied for a Reg C - especially if they're now at the 12-14 yr point. Ouch.

Stand by for tranche 3 when the guys who got their Reg Cs in the 'last chance saloon' end up out in the cold in their mid-40s with no more CEA.

Crack smoking cnuts should be ashamed of themselves. Well done DM(A), well done...

As much as it is utter bullshit, the whole point of the redundancy exercise is a cost saving measure, which is why so many people are being kicked out (in some cased exceptionally) close to thier IPP. Accordingly, it's unlikely that dates are going to be shifted around to allow anyone to get that donkey-choking redundancy payment AND collect an immediate pension.

I don't like it at all, but we need to face the real politik here.

I know this must be a rather naive way of looking at this, but with 1000's of Officer's and Soldier's leaving the Army through natural wastage/retirement etc year on year why make people redundant at all?

Surely, the most painless way to downsize the Army that in effect would not harm moral would be not to replace those that leave at the end of their time, or decide they are leaving of there own accord. I'm guessing there is alot more to it than that but the Army has always had a high through-put and one that could be taken advantage of.

Originally Posted by mark3536

I know this must be a rather naive way of looking at this, but with 1000's of Officer's and Soldier's leaving the Army through natural wastage/retirement etc year on year why make people redundant at all?

Surely, the most painless way to downsize the Army that in effect would not harm moral would be not to replace those that leave at the end of their time, or decide they are leaving of there own accord. I'm guessing there is alot more to it than that but the Army has always had a high through-put and one that could be taken advantage of.

The two principle reasons are as follows:

1. This natural wastage does not occur fast enough to meet the targets. If "normal manning levers" (i.e. reducing allowances and making life generally unbearable for soldiers and their families) were to be implemented, moral would collapse and further lead to point 2.

2. Relying on natural wastage would result in an unbalanced force, because you would loose people disproportionately from throughout the rank structure. This means that promotions would be delayed or effectively stopped at some ranks, (leading to a moral failure) and would have to happen too quickly at others (resulting in insufficient experience in those ranks).

Personally, I prefer the approach of "taking a slice off the pyramid" (i.e. losing the right numbers in each rank to give a balanced rank structure), despite the immediate pain this will cause to some.

Does there need to be clarity here?

Playing Devil's Advocate - those getting stiffed are on RegCs or the small print IRCs (10 yrs from award, not 16yr point) and therefore not exactly due to be given a pension. It's a bit of theorising in the higher corridors I suspect - they aren't due to collect that pension as they are signed on for longer. Those within 2 yrs of their End of Engagement cannot be made redundant (wait out for that to change on Tranche 2).

It doesn't stop it being (or even seeming to be) unfair, as someone within 2 years of that pension, that they could have decided to take, is now being kicked out with "only" the redundancy payment. And while that payment is generous, losing £10-15k a year for, let's say, 40 yrs, is a lot of "theoretical" cash to lose.

What scares me is that I am on an IRC with the "10 yrs from conversion" sticker, currently with under 4yrs to push (which would be less than 3 yrs to push by Tr3 announcement), although I would gladly convert to RegC IF it guaranteed further service. Rumour is that they may change the rules and tell me I'm redundant, no pension and the previous redundancy payments were FAR too gernerous, so here's £2.50...I wonder why the Continuous Attitude Survey reckoned morale was down?

If I am in a Tr3 redundancy bracket I could potentially, as a non-volunteer, miss my IP by the stroke of midnight. I'll wait to see what the dates are when they are announced but that would be a kick in the teeth to miss it by that margin. Financially though it makes a huge amount of sense to get rid of me - my wages alone for the remainder of my service would be over £1 million, let alone any other costs, to save an extra few thousand on an IP would be a budget bonus.

If I come up, it will look vaguely like this...

this government are a total disgrace!