Page 15 - Mind, Body and Spirit 2016/17

Most people would imagine that the activities of Adventurous Training and Sport would be relatively straightforward...if only they knew!
The problem with activities like AT & Sport is that they each come with very passionate participants, often backed up by in uential Senior Of cers who can rapidly escalate an issue to seek a response that meets the particular circumstances of their respective activity; all of which makes for an interesting time! More often than not I’ve found myself caught in the middle and holding the decision point. Many times over the last two and half years I have felt more like the ‘fun police’ than a Staff Of cer helping enable sport and AT to take place.
Having completed a full review of JSP 419 (AT in the UK Armed Forces) in early 2016, my main output for the remainder of the year was to complete a detailed review of AGAI Vol 1 Ch 5 (Sport). With much appreciated support from Col (Retd) Amanda Hassell and Lt Col (Retd) Steve Davis at HQ Army Sports Control Board (HQ ASCB) we had a completed draft by November 16. However, the circulation for stakeholder comment and subsequent alterations meant that the document wasn’t nally published until March 17.
During 2016, a review into the safety and coherence of AT & Sport was conducted at MOD level and a number of recommendations were presented which are currently being incorporated into the respective JSPs (JSP 419 for AT and JSP 660 for Sport). The
two JSPs now clearly categorise: what is AT, what is sport and how they are both nanced, authorised and conducted. However, what this has left ‘in the middle’ is activity which the chain of command might determine to have military bene t, but is not categorised as AT or Sport and therefore has no entitlement for its conduct. As I pen this note for MBS, I am currently drafting policy which may help the chain of command to authorise these ‘uncategorised’ activities. Hopefully, by the time that you read this in MBS, the policy will have been approved and the chain of command will have a mechanism by which they can authorise these ‘other’ activities.
When you know you’re destined for a stint in Army Training Branch, you steel yourself in preparation and convince yourself it’s only a couple of years and you can ‘grizz’ through it. But when the 2-year point approaches and there’s no sight of an escape route you begin to wonder if the end will ever come! However, the end is now in sight and my stint with Army Training Branch is almost complete. My time here at Army HQ in Andover has been busy, but rewarding. The opportunity to get away orienteering most Wednesday afternoons has kept me sane and I’m looking forward to handing over to Maj Nick O’Shea and wish him well in the job. As for me, I’m back on my ‘bungee cord’ to Fox Lines and returning to HQ RAPTC to take over from Maj Jimmy Hendrickson as SO2 Policy & Plans.
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‘AND NOW – THE END IS NEAR’
Major (MAA) Steve Collinson RAPTC SO2 Sport and AT
Since the Army Inspectorate conducted a review of audits and inspections across the Army, there has been a complete rescrub of the audit
process and an attitudinal realignment of how we conduct audits. Consequently, we no longer inspect units, we now audit and this has resulted in a name change from the Physical Development Inspection to Audit now known as the PDA. One of the key ndings from the review was there was a lack of commonality across all regimes. So the new process creates commonality in the following areas:
• Generic report formats for the Unit Executive Summary Report.
• 5 audit intensities (No Audit, Advisory visit (PDAV), Light, Medium and Full audit).
• All audit visits commence January and nish in December.
• All audit instructions follow the civilian ISO 9000 vocabulary, which is re ected in our generic audit instruction known as the
ACSO 9018.
• All questions have been sanitised to remove duplication between
the other audit regimes.
The Chief of General Staff (who instigated this review) insisted that units demonstrating a positive attitude towards audits should be rewarded by not receiving an audit visit (this could be up to a maximum of 3 years), which allows auditors more time to concentrate on units who need additional support. Every unit with a liability of 35 or more will still receive the Self-Assessment
Question Set annually, as this creates a default assurance mechanism and subsequently feeds into the (OPCOM) Brigade Commanders Annual Assurance Estimate. Thereafter, visit dates are forwarded to the Coordination Authority at Home Command, where all audit visits dates across the Army are con rmed and recorded on the master spreadsheet (Demand Signal). Albeit, this process is still evolving, I am con dent that by the next turn of the handle all irritations will be smoothed out and this will prove to be a very effective assurance process.
Training for RAPTCIs involved in this process has already commenced with presentations for the Field Army Employment Course (FAEC), the WO1 and
Captains courses, also PD staff already in post have received a brie ng, which included how to adopt the correct attitude. The bottom line is this massive overhaul has been a painful (for me) but very positive process, as an example, the PDA always played second ddle to other audit regimes, however, now that the Brigade Commander carries the risk and is integral to the process, this initiative has catapulted the PDA to the same level as the other ‘big ticket’ audit regimes.
In closing, there are far too many changes to mention in this article, so those who are interested can read more in AGAI Vol 1, Ch 7, Annex E or ACSO 9018.
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT ASSURANCE
Lt Col (MAA) Sulle Alhaji SO1 PD Assurance