Crew Manager Development

[Sal]

I have been a temporary CM for 2 years & have been deemed competent (for pay purposes) for 18 months.
I have been in charge of the bussiest appliance in the brigade for this period.
I have attended the 5 week CMMI course at Moreton (prior to the temp begining).
I have attended a managerial and personnel management course for 3 weeks (prior to the temp begining).  
I was made subtantive at the start of July and have been told that I have to enter into a development programme to prove my competence. CM's in post and subtantive prior to July do not need to prove competence.
The programme is in the NVQ style and could possibly be 18 months long.

Are there any other Brigades implementing this stable door policy?

Should this programme have been implemented at the start of the temporary period( before the horse bolted)?

Is the threat that I cannot apply for a WM post until this is complete valid?

To rub salt into the wound 3 areas that I have to prove competency in are part of the FF's NVQ.

I was told I could not use evidence that is retrospective however if I had NVQ ops in the community I would be able to carry it across regardless of the age of the material!!!

LFf & Sub O quals worthless IFE Grads not worth the paper its written on IPDR's not relevant daily record of maintaining competence throughout this period not recognised. Self identification of development needs and requests for development ignored. Penalised for being a competent Ff before NVQ was implemented.

Morale low!
Opinions please.
(always feel better after a good moan).

[Cut Fire Service Pay]

Im afraid thats why I left LAFS, I was at breaking point with all of this! At the moment im with the DFS and now they have adopted this daft ADC/Development programme stuff, if I stay it will be as a Ff.

Im currently looking at a few jobs outside of the fire service that pay more and don't make me feel angry evertime I go to work! My morale and most Ffs i know is rock bottom. Fed up with all of this rubbish. Im sick of hearing of ADC/IPDS/ITOP/WM/CM ect... ect.... Its all a failure and will never get any better. Most the lads i work with now and the ones at my old LA station have no intention of going anywhere near an ADC because of the reasons you give. ADC=Agro for a long time for very little reward.

You only have to look at the CFOA vacancies page on thier website to see how many brigades are desperate for CM/WM as thier own employees want nothing to do with promotion anymore.

Lets face facts here if your a good Ff then your brigade doesn't want you anymore. if they did they would bin all of this confusion and piffle and let you get on with it!

[cbfire999]

Is IPDS really that bad?  Having never worked with it, what are the pit falls?  It would be interesting to hear from those guys that have to work with it.

[Nearlybaldandgrey]

Welcome to the modern Fire and Rescue Service!

Just to put things in perspective, there are a number of FF elements in the Crew and Watch manager role maps, so don't feel too downhearted.

NVQ's are all aquiring the underpinning skills and knowledge and then demonstarting maintenance of skills. It's common place in Industry, such as a fork lift truck driver for example, but frowned upon by us because, well it just is! It's all new and shiny and we never expected it!!

CMMI is an IPDS course .... Personal development. I too have done this course, but have still had to be assessed in job related tests for promotion.

The NVQ programme can be achieved quicker, buit at the cost of quality and possibly not being assessed the correct number of times.

Look at the elemets of the NVQ and see which ones you can provide evidence for ..... and get assessed!

Your other option is to appeal and speak to HR .........

Look on the bright side ........ you are not alone on this one!!