All TA non-deployment training cancelled for six months

Glad to see our priorities are right...

Territorial Army told to stop training

on the same day...

Fairtrade gets £12m bumper grant

 

As reported in The Times

Still, TA not really needed anymore, so why bother to train them? :x

 

The axe is going to fall somewhere, luckily it wasn't on MP's expenses or anything vaguely important like the PM's wife's clothing budget or overseas aid. Defence of the realm is bollocks, who have we p1ssed off lately? :roll:

 

Funny you should mention that. They looked down the back of the sofa and found £12m to give to Fairtrade - article.

 

Threads merged.

It wasn't down the back of a MoD sofa. We've already recovered and spent what was there.

From the linky

Government money? Taxpayers' money surely?

 

Too true Seadog
People don't seem to realise that the Government has no money.
All money belongs to the Citizens of the UK
Pity we don't have more of a say in its distribution.

 

All this smacks of trying to get Brownie(no pun intended) points with the electorate ahead of the next election....Cynical... moi :!:

 

That doesn't really fit though...as I can't see this being a popular move with anyone outside the Labour Party and NUS. Talking to some of my oppoes, the only explanation we could come up with was that someone's bluff got called. For example:

Civil Serpent: "We need you to cut back expenditure by £50 million without cutting back on coverage"

Military Bod: "What? The only way we could do that would be to stop training the TA... and that'd be absolutely ridic-"

CS: "Stop training the TA, you say..."

 

Hmm, this is very worrying. Have only seen this is civvie newspapers thouhg, not on a MOD website???? The mind boggles.

 

From the Fairtrade article:

""Secondly, we want to broaden the scope of Fairtrade products beyond tea and coffee to other areas and thirdly, we want to make sure that we're also able to persuade other retailers to come on board and to offer Fairtrade products.''"

So that's alright, then. Pay some guys to think up new exotic organic products, rather than pay our volunteers to train to defend the national interest.

 

I stopped buying Fairtrade products some time ago, as for an apolitical organisation, they had some very politicised ideas.

On the subject of the TA, good job there isn't a war on.

 

TheRowan wrote

Blaming the MOD CS, the default position of those who don't know how Defence is financed and managed.

 

This has been happening in the RNR for years.

Units currently advertise "valuable training opportunities" and then refuse to let people attend because the unit can't afford the travel or the MTD's.

 

here here! Just been told that we've got no two-week courses training unless it's classed as pre-deployment training. Great. Train me two weeks before I deploy, and then wonder why I don't have the experience to do anything but wet myself.

Afghan, here I come!

 

I'm in the TA and I do absolutely fcuk all training anyway so this will have little or no effect on me. I just go because the bar is cheap and there is a female clerk there who I want to knob.

 

Jesus fcuking Christ. You utter bell-end. You've gone and blabbed it now - everyone will want to join!

On a serious note, the regular Army complain that the TA lack in depth training - this is hardly going to help matters.

 

That's the point! My unit offer a £200 recruiting incentive, also we need more female clerks.

 

So it only becomes a catastrophe if they close the bar?

 

Luckily the bar at my Regiment is nearly 500 years old and they make a tidy profit renting it out for parties and corporate events, they won't close it, it brings in far too much wedge.

Seriously though, this cut in training has been on the cards for ages. I say embrace it. Far too many biffs and fcukwits are in the TA just because it's an interesting hobby. I'm sure it is the same in the RNR.

A worryingly large amount of people bring absolutely fcuk all to the party. Hopefully this cut in training and the recent cull of the sigs units will get rid of a few non-essential personnel.

 

The problem with cutting headcount (either as a positive measure or by neglect leading to natural wastage) in the RNR is that the focus on RNR Training Centres as the core means of maintaining cohesion and administering the Reserve is a very expensive way of doing it (even with cost sharing among RNR, RMR, URNU, AFCO, Uncle Tom Cobley and all).

Once numbers drop below a critical mass you might as well draw stumps across the whole lot (standfast a couple of skill areas that tend not to be Unit-centric in the first place eg FAA, Int, Media etc)

The big problem is Q- "When is a Reserve not a reserve?" A - "When it is being used". The NEED at the moment is boots on the ground so the TA, RMR, RNR, RAuxAF etc are all being used and the cost-benefit equation of maintaining the Reserves as before is even less attractive to the bean counters who have immediate short term worries that far outweight the longer term ones.