By Graham Howatt

Armed Forces Federation Current leave policy provides for the accumulation of leave for three consecutive leave years before it would be lapsed.

In exceptional circumstances, the Service Chiefs have been delegated the CDF authority to extend accumulation of recreation leave into a fourth year before it would be lapsed/forfeited.

Personnel might recall the Federation’s involvement last year regarding the lapsing of accumulated leave, insisting that this should not occur where members are unable to clear leave through no fault of their own.

It was (and remains) the Federation’s view, that leave under threat should be “cashed out” rather than forfeited. Our persistence paid off last year with CDF reviewing policy and directing that no leave would be lapsed for leave year 03/04.

That meant people who had their leave lapsed on July 1, 2004, were to have it reinstated (CDF 863/04 dated August 20, 2004). A secondary purpose of the CDF directive was to examine the feasibility to provide for the cashing out of leave days for members who risked losing that leave for reasons beyond their control.

We understand that this option has been examined by the Personnel Steering Group but is yet to get a favourable response from higher committee level. Remaining concerned that members risk losing leave without a financial offset, the Federation again raised this with CDF on May 6 and requested the directive on leave lapsing be extended for a further leave year to ensure members have ample time to clear accumulated leave credits.

General Cosgrove gave an undertaking to have members’ leave records further examined and assess the magnitude of the problem before making a decision on the Federation’s request.

Now that we have had time to examine the question on the ability of members to clear leave in the 2004 Defence Attitude Survey, we note with interest that more than one third of members across the ADF answered this question in the negative so it seems our request to prevent the lapsing of leave was timely.

While the Federation is confident the CDF will give full consideration to our request, and not knowing the likelihood of a cash-out option ever gaining the seal of approval by Defence higher management, we suggest that those who are able to clear backlogs of leave, should do so before the end of this month.

We suggest that those who are able to clear backlogs of leave should do so before the end of the month.

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