From a story in the Inverness Courier, March 2008:

Inverness lawyer Douglas Young dedicated more than 30 years of his life to the Territorial Army, serving in Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo. In 2006 he helped set up the British Armed Forces Federation to represent rank and file soldiers as well as officers. Calum Macleod talks to a man much in demand... "Nobody should think [BAFF] is about battles stopping for tea-breaks or anything like that....

After she died alone with apparently no-one to pay for her funeral, it has emerged that SOE heroine Eileen Nearne MBE had struggled with money because her war pension was stopped by the Government.

As predicted, the Armed Forces Pay Review Body (AFPRB) has recommended a general increase of 1% in base pay, increases of up to 2.8% in rental charges for service accommodation, and of 1.5% in the daily food charge.

BAFF has also just learned that Australian Defence Force personnel, after a hard-fought but respectful campaign by representative organisations with influential MP support, have finally won an increase to their Government's original pay offer.

A transcript is now available of the evidence given to the French equivalent of the House of Commons Defence Committee on 21 January, 2015 about the right of association for the military personnel of Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. This follows the European Court of Human Rights rulings of 2 Oct 2014 against France, and the subsequent Pêcheur recommendation, accepted by President Hollande, that French military personnel should now be permitted the right of association. The Pêcheur report accurately described the independent BAFF as being "tolerated" by the Ministry of Defence.

The House of Commons Defence Committee's report of its inquiry into the work of the Service Complaints Commissioner for the Armed Forces (SCC) will be published at 0001 hrs (BST) on Tuesday 26 March. Written evidence to the inquiry, including a memorandum submitted by BAFF, is already available at the link below.

BAFF called for the SCC's powers and role to be increased to those of a full Armed Forces Ombudsman responsible to Parliament. BAFF also highlighted perceptions - especially in the current atmosphere of redundancy and uncertainty - that submitting a service complaint may not be in the best interests of the potential complainant.

UPDATE 26 Feb 2013: Defence Committee backs BAFF call for Armed Forces Ombudsman.

• House of Lords debate on the Queen's Speech: Marshal of the RAF calls for Service Complaints Ombudsman legislation to be cancelled. (Updated article)
• Lord Craig of Radley believes the proposals lessen "the essential ethos of trust up and down the chain of command".
• He regards the reformed service complaints system as a "combat lawfare" issue.

An article by the BAFF Chairman appears in the Defence section of the Sep-Oct 2010 edition of Government Gazette magazine, which was available at the recent party conferences. The full article can be downloaded below.

The British Armed Forces Federation welcomed members of both Houses to a parliamentary reception on Wednesday, 20 May 2009 to explain more about the campaign for recognition of a professional staff association for the armed forces.

The Times is reporting that a member of 1 PARA who ran a gauntlet of gunfire three times as he rescued a US marine has become the first living British soldier to be awarded the Victoria Cross for the war in Afghanistan:

"I cannot emphasise enough the importance of dealing with your postal ballot papers as soon as you get them, following the instructions and getting them back in the post or despatched under local arrangements as quickly as you possibly can."  BAFF's Douglas Young, a member of the consultative Service Voting Working Group* established by the Ministry of Justice, updated the unofficial Army Rumour Service website on 21 Apr 2010 about the impact of the volcano ash situation upon voting arrangements for British military voters overseas: