TA Officer recruiting

Can anyone recall the last time there was a national campaign?

msr

 

Nope and there's unlikely to be one in the near future either. You will almost certainly see an OAR based Hoccifer campaign this year (Q3) - but that is unlikely to have them flooding into the AFCO/ACIOs/TACs. Sadly there is still a belief that the 2 (R&TA officers) are very much the same.

They're not; they're quite different animals and a local / regional bespoke approach may be the order of the day.

 

i'll do it ooh ooh pick me Sir......no one at my place seems interested in sending me to Sandhurst even though i feel i am perfect for the Job. I like to drink tea, sit on my back side and watch other people do the work!.....Perfect!

 

2006 I think, I believe that's when they launched the DETAPO (direct entry) scheme. In London they all did MOD 1 together in croydon then did MOD 2 & 3 with ULOTC's/LDSTT's officer cadre. Any that made it through RMAS then went to their various sponsor units. The vast majority of them were military virgins and I think, although I could be wrong, not many made it through. I think they may have binned the scheme, but could be wrong.

 

msr - you are assuming that there is any coordination at a national level regarding TA Officers - I see no evidence.

Have we really moved on from the Victorian model of chatting to the "nice young man" from the Manor House? Not really, that is still how we recruit our POs today ( although not from Manor Houses exclusively any more).

The UOTCs are next to useless, they really need to orientate towards the production of Officers for the TA and not just the production of hangovers.

From time to time an ex Reg turns up or someone expresses an interest but I think we need to establish a centralised Officer Career Managment function for the TA, at the moment it is regionally based - a job in X Bde may not be filled but there are loads of spare Officers in Y Bde looking for a job. Or an Officer may be living in X Bde's area, parading with Y Bde and looking to move closer to home. There seems to be no central function to sweep this up and it is left to the individual to sort out their future role.

I know there are desk Officers in Glasgow but I do wonder what they do below Major level, see little impact of their work at unit level.

Storeman is right - Officer production is best done by units on a local level.

 

Out of interest, is there a set of statistics for the average national age of the Territorial Officer compared to Regulars?

 

FOI request submitted.

msr

 

Nice one Msr. What i'm getting at is that many switched on soldiers amongst the ranks may entertain going down the route of Commissioning, but might not like the idea of having to socialise and attend a mess where many of their compatriots are of a significantly older generation. This is in contrast to the Regulars, where the term "Young Officer" is not a misnomer as it is in the TA.

 

You don't do the storemans course at Sandhurst!

 

Which is what some are trying to do now

 

Yes , there are... we were given them on our TACC last year. I seem to remember it was something around the 28-32 mark for TA, and 23-24 for regs. I was paying attention honestly... I just err.. can't find my notes just now..

As for OTC's there's been talk about them changing their remit for a while now. It's very difficult to persuade TASOs or POs to move across to TA officer training with commitment when the OTC gets vast amounts of resources thrown at it in comparison - surely it should be the other way around when one organisation is actually providing bods for units and the other is a drinking club (yes, some do go on to TA or regs but is this cost effective?) . The main USP we have for getting people to leave the ethanol haze of the OTC bar is the opportunity to train in an environment with people who intend to deploy on ops one day rather than the 'Bimble smoked a pipe during his O Group, it was hilarious' attitude.

 

Remember that these TASO's and PO's are university students whose priority should be to get the best degree they can manage.

Can you clarify what you mean by "TA Officer training with commitment"?

Is it that training in an OTC does not mean you may be working towards a Commission, surely as a TASO you are albeit to a different timetable?

 

I registered an interest in joining the TA as an officer in mid 2006 and was taken out for a day with fifteen other hopefuls to observe an exercise on Salisbury Plain featuring lots of armour, guns and shouting. This was run by an Infantry Major and explained the DETAPO process in detail, as well as the TA in general.

On getting to the RSW with my chosen corps, we we told that there was no direct entry for officers and we would all join and train as Sappers. I don't know whether this was a corps policy, the CO exercising his prerogative or DETAPO had been abandoned by this point.

 

I disagree. SOME UOTC's are useless. A certain OTC I know has produced a considerable number of Officers into the TA (and Regular).

In fact almost every YO in my Regt commissioned in an OTC before transferring to Gp A.

 

I despair of the system, I really do.

msr