The one bit which strikes me most in this article is the attitude of who is described as CAA Chairwoman Dame Hutton?
If that is her opinion and the Minister is her boss, it would be time for her to step down and make place for someone who is willing to follow the Ministers policy.
I find it very encouraging to read the Ministers letter, yet he has to follow up on it and make sure it is being followed. But having a transport minister who finally gets what GA is all about and why it needs support by a CAA, that is like a substantial win in the lottery. We certainly do not have someone like that, quite the opposite.
How much nicer would everything be if regulating bodies were actually filled with people who actually like what they regulate rather than office drones and power hungry jobsworths who try everything in their power to actually suffocate the very customers they are actually there to serve. What a miserable existence must some of these people have… or maybe it is pure spite.
Queen of the Quangos……
Quote 1. Dame Deirdre Hutton, the 61-year-old chairman of the CAA who earns £130,000 for a two day week, confessed when she was appointed last year that she knew “nothing about aeroplanes”
Quote 2. “But there are a lot of things that are transferable. My main interest, I realise after quite a long time working, is making organisations work properly. I don’t want to go to an organisation that’s perfect but that’s not to say the CAA is a basket case."
Good luck Grant 
Edited to note that quote 1 was in 2012.
How long is the minister likely to be in place? Is there a reshuffle likely to take place following the recent election, or has that already taken place?
How much nicer would everything be if regulating bodies were actually filled with people who actually like what they regulate rather than office drones and power hungry jobsworths who try everything in their power to actually suffocate the very customers they are actually there to serve
There’s a view for which I have a little sympathy, that people from within sectors come to the regulatory jobs with too many preconceptions to be fair with all parties. Someone I met from the civil service once told me that if you grew up on a farm they would make sure you weren’t working in agriculture, as you would otherwise come to the job with lots of preconceptions and conflicts of interest.
I don’t know enough about the CAA to have my own opinion, but the forums are often dismissive of what they see as sinecures for ex-RAF bigwigs i.e. the very problem outlined above. I’m sure the airlines may also claim that Grant Shapps is biased in favour of GA and might be better replaced with someone more independent. At least from our perspective, someone from the RAF may actually appreciate GA.
The counter-argument is that unless we appoint the RAF bigwigs and similar we end up with managers with humanities degrees trying to oversee highly technical fields that they really don’t understand, and possibly never will.
Solutions?
kwlf wrote:
Solutions?
It is deeply embedded culturally I am afraid. Far too complex to do justice on here but…..
1. The UK is run on a club atmosphere with a minimal risk strategy, a favoured elite, and corruption at the very highest level. In fact in a survey I read somewhere Scotland was placed as one of the most corrupt countries on the planet.(Judicially)
2. The class system and its privileged honours system does most to perpetuate this club.
3. The monarchy and its entourage of duty, WW2, etc
4. A do not rock the boat, I am alright Jack viewpoint.
5. Ludicrous reward paid to poorly skilled and incompetent people. Health Service, FTSE 100 Golden Trough club, and politics being the prime examples here.
6. Quango Queens and Kings……
I sound like Lenin but I I am not. I am actually pretty right wing but time, experience and old age have made me quite cynical about the whole lot. Get rid of the lot of them is the best solution and start again.
The counter-argument is that unless we appoint the RAF bigwigs and similar we end up with managers with humanities degrees trying to oversee highly technical fields that they really don’t understand, and possibly never will.
I don’t think the choice is binary i.e. ex RAF, or somebody with a two-bob Masters in social equality 
I am all for appointing people who know the job, obviously. For example the current CAA chief exec, Richard Moriarty, almost certainly knows the job. Quite what the quango queen is doing I have no idea – probably what Dan Quayle used to do (attending funerals, mostly).
There is a view in the corporate world that top level management is very similar no matter what the business is. I’ve been told that so many times in the 42 years I’ve been in business – and always thought it is bollox unless you are running a business which delivers a basically non technical service (issuing passports, perhaps). Hence the previous chief exec, Mr Haines, had a career in restaurant chains; obviously he did learn generalities about flying over the few years (I have met him). One downside of these people is that it is easy for those lower down to hoodwink them, and I have seen this particularly in airport management where somebody hoodwinked the management into granting them a mandatory-handling concession, which then gradually trashes the airport by removing smaller traffic and then when something else happens which cuts down the bigger stuff, the place goes to the dogs. Or a manager hoodwinking the local council into funding an airport and when the council discovers it (after many years) they go berserk and do something stupid – usually they sell it to the first bunch of wide boys who come along.
On the ex RAF recruitment option, into the CAA as mentioned, I am not aware of anything which pre-qualifies those for implementing a regulatory policy in the civilian aviation (or any other) sphere. What you are getting from the military – and I have job-interviewed a few over the years, and met many – is a person who has been taught confidence, discipline, carrying out orders, in some cases independent thinking, motivating subordinates (if appropriate past rank and position), turning up looking smart, loyal to the Queen and country, not thick (but also not PhD material), so you get basically good people who tend to really shine at interviews, especially these days when our PC society and social media have rendered so many younger people unable to communicate properly, discipline and respect have been lost, etc. In today’s CAA, so many good people have left (due to EASA’s takeover of the role) that somebody who is ex RAF, ex this, ex that, has a Linkedin profile as long as your arm, and has a PPL, is a god and owns the agenda at meetings. How one can tackle that if wanting to do a top-down policy review, I don’t know, because you are faced with a “middle management” layer within the organisation which will stick together so tight you won’t fit a 22swg wirelocking wire between them. This is not a UK only problem of course; I could cite a particularly horrid example which is ex USAF. The other downside of ex mil recruitment is that you get a % of people who cannot cope with civilian life, and vent their frustrations in various ways, including social media. We have done this in the currently running threads on infringement policy, and my view is that it is directly responsible for the current extremely aggressive policies.
Just my opinion
How long is the minister likely to be in place? Is there a reshuffle likely to take place following the recent election, or has that already taken place?
AFAIK, he is in there for a while. Desk full on HS2, I bet (a really hard choice).
Peter wrote:
Just my opinion
And a god one at that. There is change in the wind. Hard hat on……..
1. Donald Trump – Clear the swamp
2. Dominic Cummings – looking for weirdos and dysfunctionlas
3. Boris
4. Under one banner…..
It will come because the change is recognised
Peter wrote:
I have seen this particularly in airport management where somebody hoodwinked the management into granting them a mandatory-handling concession, which then gradually trashes the airport by removing smaller traffic and then when something else happens which cuts down the bigger stuff, the place goes to the dogs.
That is an approximation of what happened at Elba LIRJ a few years ago. AOPA Italy got the word out to pilots suggesting they boycott the airport. The year-end results of the first year were enough for the airport to fire him and replace him with someone who’s first action was to restore the previous price list.
Regarding the general premise about relationship to the field, the new Ukraine president seems to be proving that sometimes arms length is not a bad thing. He continues to repeat that he is not a politician, has no political axe to grind or debts to reward, and makes decisions and acts based on what he thinks is best for his people. He’s doing ok so far being neutral in the US Democratic/Republican fight, has negotiated at least a modest “hostage” exchange with Russia by taking a balanced posture between EU and Russia friendly, and his restrained posture toward Iran may have helped it to acknowledge shooting down flight PS752.
The traditional UK solution seems to be to import an American senior manager, pushing out the upper class twit who otherwise seems to occupy the top slot in UK companies. He then cleans house. Notwithstanding a certain senior figure’s background this doesn’t seem broadly applicable to government!
Re management skills as universal, my experience is that privately owned companies that put people with at least some product knowledge in charge do a lot better than companies that fall victim to the MBA philosophy of aimless mediocrity. This is particularly true for companies utilizing or developing any kind of technology, by which I do not mean just IT companies.
