The next meeting is July 8 and I will raise the question there as to why the statistical information is not public, and will challenge the argument that it is to protect the confidentiality of any individual case. Perhaps someone could remind me the day before, just so I am sure not to forget?
It was decided/announced at the last meeting that everyone who is traced as an infringer would receive a letter saying that the matter is noted but closed. We will, no doubt, be told at the next meeting how that has gone, but as the proportion of NFAs has always hovered around 80%, maybe that extra visibility will make that figure more transparent.
The question of why so many people fail the initial test has exercised us for a long time, and the protection of the question bank has always been given as a reason for coyness, but maybe we could push back a little harder to see the questions under some form of NDA. One issue is that anyone from GA, including anyone sitting round that table, could be subject to the test, so they need to keep the questions under lock and key, but we could try again.
But the general thesis that decisions are taken in order to feed GASCo with funds is ridiculous and insulting to all those involved. The only way of “justice being seen to be done” would be to make the hearings public, like adult criminal courts. Is that what you all want? How can you operate a Just Culture under those circumstances? If you want full judicial oversight of every case, may as well prosecute everyone. Be careful what you wish for.
This is interesting;
http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Accounts/Ends75/0001094175_AC_20171231_E_C.pdf local copy
Firstly, here we have a registered charity that is meant to be acting in the public interest and setting standards appropriate to a registered charity.
It seems at odds that they cant be bothered to publish their accounts with the charities commission until literally the very last minute. (2 days before the legal deadline). If this were a public company the directors would be severely called to task, yet it is acceptable for a charity in a prominent position, so it would seem. Of course it is not the first time, two years earlier the accounts were filed on the last day according to the Commissioners records. Their record with CoHo is somewhat better.
Then, the income in 2017 has risen, and there is a statement that this was in consequence of the Infringement Course the whole cost of which was apparently refunded by the CAA so GASCo say, but then GASCo collect all the fee income from the course. Thats wonderful, so the regulator has paid them to develop a course, the whole of the benefit from which they pocket? I wonder exactly how that might sit with both the Commissioners and the Regulators. It seems to me the use of the public purse in that way is questionable, given that GASCo clearly has the ability to fund the development of the course for themselves from the fee income they now receive. Perhaps those cost should be paid back?
GASCo then go on to say that they are the sole provider. No doubt the CAA considered other providers, value for money, tendering etc?
In this year, the fee income from their infringement activities has risen to over a third of their total income, and equates to nearly £1,000 a week. That is a nice little earner.
From the accounts it isnt rocket science to work out the basic numbers. This information is in the public domain, if not exactly made obvious. It therefore seems strange that the reguator would seem so reluctant to produce basic statistics?
GASCo also go on to say that they have set minimium reserves of £30K, which seems wholly proportionate for a minor operation such as this, but in fact their reserves are now over £76K and it would seem no good reason to think that the trend will not continue. I think both the regulator and the trustees should be asking why they consider it approriate to accumulate funds in this way and whether it was a good use of public money for the public to fund the cost of the course, but for the charity to keep the proceeds year on year? More to the point why does the CAA not ask for the funding costs back? Also, if the course is designed to promote their objectives why cant it be subsidised, as clearly the funds are available to do so?
While the powers are constructed in the usual style of attemtping to encapsulate every activity, a “course” which is effectively compulsory and involves, as I understand it, an examination which can and is capable of being failed with consequence, would seem to be stretching their activities beyond breaking point, and certainly beyond what the public might expect of any organisation that has the benefit of charitable status. I am not aware of any other charity that operates a course with this benchmark.
NDORS, which operates the equivalent scheme for road offenders, as I understand it, is a not for profit limited liability company and is constituted so their “educational” activities are ring fenced with UKROED Ltd, which would seem a reasonably transparent way in which to operate and submit to public scrutiny. It is disappointing that our regulator should not have considered that model.
There may be some serious questions here for the Charities Commission and the Regulator to at least consider and some questions about over sight and the way in which public monies have been used?
All subject to the usual caveat that I am not making any specific allegations or accusations, just raising questions about what the position appears to be, and more than happy to be corrected if I have misunderstood.
Timothy wrote:
But the general thesis that decisions are taken in order to feed GASCo with funds is ridiculous
It may indeed be, but GASCo do seem to be doing quite well out of the arrangement. If correct, I would love to have someone pay for me to put together what is effectively a compulsory awareness scheme, but collect all the proceeds and not pay back the original costs?
Timothy wrote:
The only way of “justice being seen to be done” would be to make the hearings public, like adult criminal courts. Is that what you all want? How can you operate a Just Culture under those circumstances? If you want full judicial oversight of every case, may as well prosecute everyone. Be careful what you wish for.
But is that the only way? I think a lot of people would be satisfied with some basic statistics.
Incidentally, our criminal justice system manages to be well-regarded, despite the Crown Prosecution Service failing to “prosecute everyone”.
DavidS wrote:
But is that the only way? I think a lot of people would be satisfied with some basic statistics.Incidentally, our criminal justice system manages to be well-regarded, despite the Crown Prosecution Service failing to “prosecute everyone”.
I think given a brief inspection of the involvement in this arrangement of a charitable organisation a complaint to both the CAA’s regulator and the Charities Commissioner might be more appropriate so that at least we can be satisfied there has been proper oversight of public money and charitable priviliges. There may well be, but it seems to be there is enough to ask the questions?
Further to, I am informed that the process is to take an online test, and then if (when) you fail, report for the course.
Who adminsters and sets the online test? Is there any fee involved? Is it GASCo or the CAA? What happens to the data collected during the test (I assume there is personal data collected) and who is the custodian of this data?
Is GASCo registered with the data commissioner if they are the custodian and are they registered anyway in order to hold the persoanl data relating to the pilots taking the course?
You have infringed. You take a test and if you pass are sent on your way. If all the questions can be answered on the strength of the online tutorial I can see how it could be argued there is an elment of re-education. Can all the questions be answered from the on line tutorial? If they cannot, then where is the re-education? You are patently having to rely on past education, which again patently would appear to have been inadequate. 
I then understand you take the course (if you have failed). From anyone that has, in what way does the course effectively re-educate you, and would you then be able to pass the questions on which you failed?
What effort effort has been made to establish why pilot’s infringe, and if this information is available, how has it been used? Presumably this is information that could be collected by asking everyone that takes the test? Where are the statistics?
It seems to me these are all simple and logical questions to which there should be readily available answers. I have no doubt these questions would have been thought of during the various committee proceedings and the processes put in place to make sure they could be answered. There are probably other equally sensible questions.
I am sure someone would like to help us out with the answers?
Oversight is a serious business. It must be fair and open to scrutiny. It is on that our justice system is based and anything less is a dereliction of duty of all those involved. It is even more dangerous when these fundamental requirements are not subject to the scrutiny of our judicial process, and therefore they are questions that should be capable of answers without hesitation, otherwise there must be serious doubt on the process and all those that were involved with the process.
BTW I cant seem to find that GATSCo is registered with data protection – perhaps under a different name – or perhaps they dont receive any personal relevant information relating to the infringing pilots?
Perhaps topic drift: but the subject of airspace redesign must have to come up.
The advice being given in the UK is “TAKE2” – plan to remain 2nm from the lateral edges of CAS, and 200ft below. This is fine advice to avoid inadvertent busts due to a momentary lapse of concentration. However, this causes “airspace bloat”, resulting in quite a lot of unusable airspace (probably thousands of km^2 worth of unusable airspace).
This may not be a problem in many areas, but take the Manchester LLR: following “TAKE2” narrows the Manchester LLR to 0.5nm wide and a ceiling of only 1100 feet (about 900ft AGL), significantly increasing the chances of mid-air collision – especially when the pilot is concentrating on avoiding an airspace infringement to the cost of good lookout (and reducing the number of suitable landout fields, especially when crossing Warrington). Given a lot of airspace seems to be designed around the requirements of a wheezy DC3 operating with one engine inoperative rather than modern jet performance, surely it’s time to widen the Manchester LLR by at least a couple of nm, and raise its ceiling by at least a couple of hundred feet?
There are other airspace pinch points which TAKE2 make even more of a pinch point (and it’s going to get worse, eg. when Farnborough get their swathes of nearly empty airspace).
but take the Manchester LLR:
Which is why I ask for a clearance through Liverpool (more likely) or Manchester (less likely) and not default to using the LLR.
Timothy wrote:
The question of why so many people fail the initial test has exercised us for a long time, and the protection of the question bank has always been given as a reason for coyness, but maybe we could push back a little harder to see the questions under some form of NDA. One issue is that anyone from GA, including anyone sitting round that table, could be subject to the test, so they need to keep the questions under lock and key, but we could try again.
I think the major complaint here is that the online tutorial contains a lot of qualitative material about what causes infringements, the effect that they have on ATC and other aircraft, and how infringements can/should be prevented. One completes that tutorial and proceeds to the online test with the presumption that the test will be based on the content one has just absorbed.
Then one starts the test (one attempt only, under non-trivial time pressure and having been told that if your internet connection drops then you fail), and it is a load of nav and performance/planning questions from the PPL question bank. This will come as something of a surprise, and one can imagine people frantically running around their house to find a calculator, whizz-wheel, etc.
Is it not incredibly clear why people fail? I recall a lot of those PPL questions being pretty rubbish in the first place – subjective, multiple correct answers, having to distinguish between similar numerical answers given to a ludicrous degree of accuracy when physically measuring stuff, etc. I have not been invited to take the infringement test, but frankly I rather dread having to do so. I suppose one could argue that these people are pilots holding a licence, so they should pass PPL exams if presented with them. But be realistic – you could take the average ATPL out of the cockpit and sit them down with an ATPL theory exam and they are probably not going to pass it.
Timothy wrote:
But the general thesis that decisions are taken in order to feed GASCo with funds is ridiculous and insulting to all those involved.
It is neither ridiculous nor insulting. Organisations of all sorts are prone to this sort of thing, and neither the CAA nor GASCo exist on some sort of higher professional level where the basic tenets of organisational theory do not apply. All organisations seek to increase their own power and wealth. It is a common excuse to say that XYZ is not-for-profit so it can’t be doing this for the money, but it is only not-for-profit overall. Most not-for-profit organisations do some things which generate money in order to fund some things which cost money – it is extremely rare to see one where every activity they do is individually cost-neutral.
So this has gone from a request for basic stats, which seemed reasonable, to a full audit of GASCo?
You have succeeded in losing the support of someone else who is essentially on your side. Good luck guys. I wish you well in your endeavours.
