I'm unconvinced it's a "net benefit". Fundamentally, what we have is a movement of time use from higher-valued to lower-valued. I would have individuals who volunteer to serve pay the cost (by using vacation time) so that employers (and ultimately customers and taxpayers) aren't paying the cost. Trying to argue "net benefit" is difficult to impossible and isn't really the tack to take.
Big picture, I'm also unconvinced the cost of the Res F has been worth what it has provided in Reg F augmentation for the past 40 years, going back to and beyond the old "flyover" billets for fall ex in Germany. I've heard the "invaluable, critical" assessments all through FRY and Afghanistan, but I doubt any of the assessors were thinking in terms of Bastiat's seen/unseen. One of the alternatives to the funded, not-very-employable Res F we have is a more-funded Reg F. And then would the Res F still be needed for anything short of "total war"?
I've always been emotionally sympathetic to the "net benefit" view, but not intellectually. I've not seen anyone crunch numbers to "prove" these propositions one way or the other. But the high-to-low value use of time is undeniable.
Military leave provisions in law for everyone might be a necessary component of re-working the Res F to be more valuable. That can be true, and it can also be true that it's a net cost. As I perpetually write, mobilization of resources is inefficient. Make the case for the necessity, but mostly* don't try to argue that any costs are saved.
*The significant exceptional principle: a military force that successfully deters conflict is cheaper than one that does not.
Brad
I basically agree with what you are saying re net value but that is because of what the reserve force and in particular the ARes has been pigeonholed into becoming.
No reserve structure has a day-to-day net value. It's simply sunk costs accepted on the basis that the full-time force you need is too expensive to be at a scale that you'd like to have. So you create a stand-by force that can be called up when eventually needed. It's identical to an insurance policy which has zero net value year-to-year unless your in an accident or have a fire.
The art is what coverage you buy, or, in the case of a reserve force, how you structure it.
The core model is mobilization. The only real value the RegF has seen in the reserves over the years is Class Bs in cubicles, and small, basically low ranked Class C individuals to round out deployed units when the RegF was getting worn out by continuous operational deployments. In both cases you are bringing people in on a long term basis for full-time employment. It would be more efficient to just hire more full-timers on short term contracts for that.
The idea that you need a large Class A pool in order to generate sufficient Class B and Class C volunteers for the office and operational use is simply a fallacy and the result of an improper structure. The size of the Class A force should be determined by the size of a force that you expect to mobilize on a compulsory basis, if and when needed.
It's almost trite to say that those Class As need to be properly trained and equipped for mobilization or else you are throwing away much of the benefit of the investment made in your insurance policy over the years. An undertrained and underequipped reserve force is the equivalent of paying for an insurance policy with no flood coverage on a house sitting in a flood zone.
I've worked on or sat on the periphery of several attempts to restructure the reserves. Most of those failed because they ignored the concept for mobilization and the associated training and equipment costs and instead focused on a cheap way to enable "what can the reserves do for us today" tasks. Some because the RegF doesn't want to do them, others because the RegF isn't authorized enough PYs to do them, others because there is a shortfall of RegF personnel blocking authorized positions but unable to do the job (for a variety of reasons) and some because the RegF can't recruit and train full-time people fast enough to do the job.
No costs are saved with that concept. It's just a weak attempt to recuperate some benefits to fix spot problems within the overarching RegF structure and employment model. Take for example 6 month rotations. What could possibly be more destructive and a waste of resources than that? Especially in a peacetime scenario. Postings or longer rotations are much more efficient for the force as a whole if all that mattered were costs or use of resources.
What got me started on this reply was the statement "I'm also unconvinced the cost of the Res F has been worth what it has provided in Reg F augmentation for the past 40 years." My view is simply that there isn't enough regular force augmentation (or of a consistent quality) or of regular force leadership to have an impact on the reserve force as a whole. This half hearted commitment of full-time support (which by legal definition means RegF) and no equipment of significance is exactly why the reserve force is of such poor general quality that it is. The current model has been a well-observed failure for much more than 40 years.
So what are the solutions? Take the battalion's worth of RegF out of the reserve structure and create a 4th PPCLI? Or double down and provide the equipment, training and the full-time leadership and administrative structure to make it effective? I'm personally on the side of the latter and to me that entails fixing more than RegF participation but also the many underlying structural problems with reserve force service. That's where I have a problem with the army's current transformation model. The vast number of issues wrong with reserve service are not at the army level but the CAF/DND level - employer legislation is but one example. I'm of the view that fixing RegF terms of service are also needed. There are what - 4,000? - Class Bs in the system. If that doesn't indicate a need for a RegF class of service which doesn't require moving but still requires operational tours then I don't know what does. - Again, not something the army can fix.
. I went RegF in 69 and in the summer of 1971 3 RCHA was kept in Wainwright after the brigade WainCon, to run the thing for some 600 kids. By then it was called student youth employment program (SYEP) but was basically the same six week recruit course I did years earlier. My SSEP was all male, about the size of a large platoon and all made up of folks from the various units in the Moss Park Armoury. I presume there were other serials in other armouries. The SYEP we ran in 71, OTOH, had females, not many, but some. If I recall correctly it was called SYEP 5a and I understood that there was also supposed to be a 5b that was for a follow on year and taught basic Jnr NCO leadership. I never saw that course myself. Our 600 SYEP folks came from all over western Canada and was made up of a broad mix of many regiments and branches.
