IMPORTANT! DASA Continuity of Education Allowance Survey

AFF_company_representative

All 5,500 serving personnel currently claiming CEA and 13,500 personnel matching similar criteria will have received a survey on Dii (or will have received a postcard asking them to follow a link to the survey).
The survey is being used to feed into a Ministerial review team’s report into CEA. AFF has reviewed the survey and is advising those completing the survey to exercise extreme caution.
AFF is concerned that the questions are leading and biased and believe that they will give an unrepresentative view of the importance of CEA.
AFF will represent your feelings on the survey to command.

Just to confirm it is only available on the Defence Intranet.

Julie McCarthy, Chief Executive AFF: "This survey is not an opportunity for families to express how important CEA is. It has been carefully crafted to produce statistics to dramatically alter or cut CEA. How can a review into CEA be a fair and balanced study when it is clear from the questions asked that it is to cut CEA. Initial reactions to it have been disbelief and a feeling of betrayal. Is it fair to ask families to choose between SFA and providing a stable education for their children? To decide on the reduction in an allowance by how many people it will encourage to leave the Army? Families are right to be concerned about the future of CEA but AFF will continue to lobby hard on the future of this and other very important allowances. Be assured we have already made the Adjutant General aware of our concerns over this survey."

Some comments have now been added to the website.

If you'd like to feedback to AFF either email [EMAIL="feedback@aff.org.uk"]feedback@aff.org.uk[/EMAIL] or reply to this post and I will feedback comments and concerns on your behalf.

Bigun28

Having done the review myself, I totally concer that it is extremely bias towards getting rid of the CEA allowance. Throughout the questions, you have no opportunity to express the importance of it because everything is multi-choice with no option to enter your own comments. All questions are asked in such a way, and geared towards you agreeing to get rid of it, or have it drastically reduced.

Typical military/government ploy to cut funds again. Good luck AFF on tackling and stopping this one.

davilown

I won't be answering that one then when I get back later this month

AFF_company_representative

AFF needs to compile information to feed into the ministerial review of Continuity of Education Allowance (CEA). CEA is an expensive allowance which has recently been under close scrutiny and continues to be examined for cost saving purposes. AFF would like to address the shortcomings of the recent DASA CEA survey which some of you may have been invited to complete. Our survey aims to give a clear, transparent and fair overview of families opinions on CEA. Please forward it to as many colleagues and friends as possible. It is VITAL that we are able to supply data from a large sample pool. It is also important that we hear from families who do not currently claim CEA. AFF has not asked for your details and can not track your answers and therefore can guarantee anonymity.

To complete the survey please go to www.surveymonkey.com/s/AFF_CEA_Survey. The survey will close on the 14th February. Thank you for your time. The response to our survey so far has been immense but the more respondents we get the stronger our voice.

AFF_company_representative

Update: in only 48 hours we have had 750 completed surveys. This is our quickest ever response and demonstrates the enormous depth of feeling generated by the allowance cuts and coming (or likely) assault on CEA. Emails continue to arrive. The response we have had is unprecedented. We have seen a leap in the number of serving personnel who are contacting AFF because we can say what they can’t say. Despite this fantastic response we still need more so pass it on to everyone you know!

We need to hear from ALL army parents who have children under 18 years of age – not just those who claim CEA. Those who do not yet have children, but wish CEA to be available when they do, can email [EMAIL="feedback@aff.org.uk"]feedback@aff.org.uk[/EMAIL]

As well as contacting us, service personnel should email concerns ref: the DASA CEA survey direct to [EMAIL="cea@dasa.mod.uk"]cea@dasa.mod.uk[/EMAIL] copied to us if wished, to ensure they are fully aware of the huge levels of dissatisfaction with the style, content, accessibility and apparent bias of their ministerial evidence gathering exercise.

In amongst the outraged comments over allowance cuts and the CEA survey AFF has received a huge amount of thank-you messages and well wishes, asking us to keep the momentum going. Soldiers and their families of all ranks, including the very highest, appear truly grateful that we are working so hard on these issues and are taking such a firm stance.

Remember – we can say what you can’t say, and we want to give you the loudest voice possible.