wave_dodger said:Problem is the RN has to know what it needs and wants!
And therein lies the root of the problem, the RN seems unable to actually make up its mind what it wants, and that doesn't just apply to the RNR.
Personally I think that we could do with divesting a couple of the reserve branches and concentrating on the ones that do actually have some differentiation. On the other hand it's not helpful that there appears to be a view in some quarters that exclusivity is useful, so we end up with some capabilities delivered by either regulars or reserves, but resistance to pooling from both.
I'm not sighted on the current thinking with respect to a regular Int capability, but the idea of an Int specialisation a hardy perennial. The same idea keeps resurfacing every couple of years; the requirement isn't big enough to have a standalone branch, so it becomes an adqual with the associated rhetoric about the ''best people'' doing it, the appointers dissuade the ''best people'' from taking that route so it returns to being a backwater for failed PWOs and enthusiastic amateurs from the other branches.
Returning to the point of the thread, senior leadership, the key point is how the RN in general manages change. It appears to me that the reserve side of life is about 18 months behind the regulars, so end up trying to catch up with badly implemented change in the first place, without the time or resources to mitigate for the failures of senior leadership in the regular service. Issues are exacerbated by the low barriers to exit and the high barriers to entry in the reserve, poor internal communication and a lack of clarity over primacy; RTCs or specialisations.
Notwithstanding all of that I can agree with a lot of the points in the thread, the reserve service is top heavy at both officer and snr rate level, however when one considers the demographic profile that problem should reasonably disappear over the next couple of years. We could do with being a bit more brutal about sanctioning re-engagement and that will slim things down in the SO1 and SO2 plot quite significantly.