Pay and Allowances
A subject close to everyone’s heart – how much does a Serviceperson earn, what charges must he/she pay for accommodation, food, etc, and what allowances (or benefits) are available to reimburse or compensate the Serviceperson for the costs incurred during a career?
This is a VAST subject – the Tri-Service Regulations on Allowances (Joint Service Publication 752) runs to 702 pages! And the RAF pay scales and rules and regulations are similarly complex. Rather than duplicate effort and risk our information being out of date almost as soon as we type it, the best thing we can do is signpost you to an excellent source of information – the RAF Community Support pages on the RAF website and the Guide to Pay and Allowances.
If you look here under the Pay and Allowances in our Financial Section, you can find all the current rates of pay and allowances and the detailed rules about entitlement and eligibility. Rates tend to change each year in April but the rules and regulations are constantly under review so it’s best to check the detail before you submit a claim. If you can’t find your way around, feel free to contact us for further guidance and we will do our best to help. If you are not entitled to a particular allowance but believe you have genuine grounds to submit a case for extra-regulatory treatment, you should consult your local personnel staff in the first instance who can help interpret the policy and advise on the best way to staff your case if such action is deemed appropriate.
The main reason the RAF Families Federation has an interest in pay and allowances is because we are keen to gather evidence about the effectiveness or otherwise of the remuneration package. By gathering your views on which bits of the pay and allowances package work well for families and which do not, we can report your concerns upwards and influence emerging policy.
THE ROLE OF THE ARMED FORCES PAY REVIEW BODY
Each year, the Chairman of the Federation is invited, along with her fellow Chairmen from the Naval and Army Families Federations, to provide evidence to the Armed Forces Pay Review Body (AFPRB) on the views of RAF families about the entire remuneration package.
The AFPRB is an independent body manned by very capable and influential people who take their role very seriously. They travel extensively around military units talking with serving personnel and their families to gain a comprehensive understanding of the views held on the remuneration package available within the Armed Forces.
This year, the 3 Federation Chairmen spent over an hour being questioned by the AFPRB members and I certainly felt that the AFPRB members were listening and taking account of our views, expressed on behalf of all military families. During the 2007 evidence phase, there was a specific focus on the review of the X- factor (featured in our magazine “Envoy” in the Winter 2007 edition). Other issues discussed were the rates charged for Service Families Accommodation, the effectiveness of the Operational Allowance, the cost of Boarding School and a whole range of family-related issues.
Having concluded their evidence-gathering sessions, the AFPRB produce a comprehensive report in which they summarise their evidence. The report makes specific recommendations to the Government regarding the rates of pay and allowances that should be paid to military personnel, together with the charges that should be made for accommodation, food and other charges. At the end of the day, the decisions on pay rates, etc is a political one and it is for Ministers to determine priorities within the overall budget. However, AFPRB recommendations are taken very seriously and it is in our interests to provide the best possible evidence we can to assist them in their work.
If you want to know more about the work of the AFPRB, go to their website at the Office for Manpower Economics: www.ome.uk.com. Here you can find out about the AFPRB members and view their comprehensive reports on-line. It’s a fascinating read and provides an excellent insight into key aspects of our remuneration package. To view the 2010 AFPRB report Click here.