Page 17 - Mind, Body and Spirit No. 105 2021/22

ARMY HEADQUARTERS
PERSONNEL POLICY (ARMY), PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT (PROF DEV)
SO1 Individual Training – Lt Col (MAA) N O’Shea RAPTC
Ayear on as SO1 Individual Training (Ind Trg) in Prof Dev and a year wiser, I think? Again, another busy year in Army HQ with much change, I offer the following as a reflection on policy business.
Resourcing. Another year of compressed resources, which have continued to keep the team very busy to achieve outputs and positive effect against the Army Command Plan. Alongside time and finance, workforce resources continue to challenge, Majs Mark Field and Sid Saunders both moved on to HQ RAPTC, and Maj Iain Bareham arrived as a perfect replacement for Mark on the PT Policy Desk; Major Sid was not replaced as SO2a Physical Employment Standards (PES).
Lt Col Julie Draper as SO1 Occ Med to work on Physical Employment Standards (PES) and Maj Bex Whitehead as OC Training Development Team (TDT) are welcome arrivals into gapped posts, and Maj Chandra Pun arrived to take over as SO2 Individual Training (Ind Trg). Also, this year, WO1 Mally Mallinson and WO2 (QMSI) Chris Williams joined the TDT, Chris fills a new Substance Misuse (SM) training analyst post, and Mally took over as the Officer Career Stage 2 & 3 Training and Education analyst, both great additions. Wider, Brigadier Phil Bassingham- Searle arrived to fill the gapped Head Pers Pol(A) post and Col (now Brigadier) Griff Griffiths OBE arrived as AHd Prof Dev, he has now moved into the D Ops role within HQ ARITC, and Col Colette Macdonald OBE has arrived as the new AHd, so three AHds in 18 months. The above staff churn and other Prof Dev gaps continue to focus management to achieve effect and output against a busy battle rhythm.
PT Policy. Maj Iain arrived in Jun 21 and hit the ground running, Climatic Injury Prevention policy and training continue to be a development focus and are critically linked to wider Army safety business; Defence Heat Illness Prevention Training development and Service Inquiry (SI) recommendations have all progressed, thanks to his proactive engagement. The progression of the My Army Fitness App has been slow, complex and resource intensive, with all Army digital platforms moving to MoDCloud there has been a large dependency on Net Company and the MoDCloud team, this has constrained progression and the completion of this project. At the time of writing, with a great effort and persistence from several RAPTC personnel it is hoped the App will go live in Aug 22.
FISS management and refinement continues to be a needy digital platform to meet the constant demands for PES and other
The RAPTC team in Prof Dev with Lt Col John Foster (SO1 Prof Dev)
My Army Fitness App Opening Screen. Scan the QR Code for more information.
data analysis, Freedom of Information
requests etc. Thermal Burden research
and Military Judgement Panels (MJPs)
have demanded PT policy resource to
evidence base policy change to increase
Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT)
thresholds for PT testing. Along with Field Army’s drive to change MATTs to Individual Training Requirements; resulting in a lot of policy analysis and change, a plethora of 1* and 2* HQ meetings to prepare for, Water safety policy refinement and parliamentary, PES, SCR & APTS RfIs, have all kept Iain very busy.
PES Policy. Whilst PES has now been implemented across the Army, there is still much physical research and development around wider Army capabilities. ‘PES next steps’ work is focused on many areas of research, the following offers the wave top aspects. Baselining the MSFT and WATT Bike test to the 2km run standards, research a safer and more resource efficient Role Fitness Test (Entry) (RFT(E)) 2km run alternative for Army
15