I was honoured and, to be honest, a little surprised to take on the important responsibility of Head of the Admin Training Specialisation from Gp Capt Tim Winstanley. Tim had been doing an excellent job for a number of years, extended whilst my post was filled by a non Trainer, and I thought he had, through longevity and profile, made the HOS job his own! However, on the basis that change is good, and that you can have too much of a good thing, we agreed that I would take it on. Having now completed 6 months as DACOS Trg Plans, which is a development of the old Gp Capt TD role, I can say without doubt that, although the post is designated Admin “Any”, the work demands extensive experience and knowledge of training within the RAF and Defence I am convinced that the post will be filled, much more often than not, by one of you in the future. What we need to achieve together is an increased number of us becoming competitive for promotion at every level, and thereby developing a deeper pool of OF5s to fill appointments such as mine. We are doing important work which is recognised by most as vital to the delivery of operational effect, but there remains some myopia and parochialism from some outside our specialisation, which we need to deal with. A little more on that later but first a bit of background on me, particularly important for the less aged members of the specialisation, who have not had the dubious delight of working with me in the past.

Following completion of a Geology Degree, I joined the Education and Training specialisation of the Administrative Branch in 1984. My career has largely been associated with education and training delivery, design and management. As a Junior Officer I undertook tours at Marham, Leuchars, West Drayton and at 33 SU Ayios Nikolaos. While in Cyprus for a period which covered the first Gulf War, I was responsible for operational construction projects as well as training. In addition I trained teams for, and completed, the misnamed Cyprus Walkabout, and fitted in a surprising amount of skiing. Returning to UK on promotion in 1992 I enjoyed a tour as OC Training Squadron at RAF Odiham, followed by a staff appointment at HQ TGDA where I was both a Budget Manager and Regional Staff Officer. The next tour took me to RAF Halton where I set up and recruited a RAuxAF Training Support Squadron. A year later I was selected to attend ACSC2 and, following the course and promotion, took up the appointment of OC Administrative Wing at RAF Shawbury in Sep 1999. I then joined the newly formed Directorate General Training and Education and spent 2 years developing a more coherent approach to Defence “E-Learning” including driving forward the project to procure a Defence E-Learning Delivery and Management Capability. There followed a short notice posting to take over a VCDS sponsored study to reorganise administration support for UK personnel serving in NATO and Non-NATO posts throughout Europe. I had worked hard to be given a challenging opportunity and it paid off as I become Chief of Staff of the new formation, Rhine and European Support Group (RESG), on its formation in April 04, was promoted and later assumed the post of Deputy Commander.

My aim in the somewhat lengthy “me” paragraph is to demonstrate that my career has been mainly within specialisation, which means that I do have some understanding on most of the things that are facing you, with the notable exception of those of you working in training schools (I am however getting a crash course in current and future training school/establishment issues in my work with Wg Cdr Al Thomas providing the RAF perspective on all things DTR).

In terms of current issues facing the RAF and therefore every branch and specialisation within it, I would say that, as we emerge from the drawdown period, the drive to streamline the delivery of operational effect within a truly expeditionary Air Command dominates most thinking. Each post must clearly add value to this endeavour, and where it does not, serious consideration should be given to doing things differently or for the resource to be used to do something else entirely. I have no doubt that every post within our specialisation adds tremendous value to the organisation as a whole, but whilst some are clearly linked to “operational effect”, some are not. You will probably have heard something about the Admin End-to End (E2E) study, which includes a proposal to remove Admin Trainers involved in “TNA”, but as TNA’s are carried out by SMEs, largely within the Training Analysis Centre, working to me and based at RAF Halton, this clearly makes no sense. Importantly, this has been recognised by the sponsors of the study and Sqn Ldr John Kearney, a member of our specialisation is currently involved in a validation of the study and the implementation of any of the recommendations which do make sense. I am now part of the stakeholder group and will ensure you get an update in the next newsletter.

That is probably enough for now, except to say that I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible at RAFEdTOA functions or during my occasional visits to Stations.