CASA in Crisis

[pmccarthy]

Professions Australia have released a report on CASA. In summary they concluded

1. Staffing. Technical teams are chronically short staffed and there is an effective freeze on recruitment.

2. Workloads. Under staffing is intensifying workloads among a shrinking pool of technical professionals.

3. Training and currency. Technical work groups are being deskilled as a result of a lack of currency training and professional development.

4. Restructuring and procedural change. CASA are hollowing out the technical elements of many roles via restructuring and changing procedures which limit the opportunity to conduct technical work and oversight.

5. Poor engagement and loss of confidence. CASA fails to take the concerns of technical staff seriously, convinced that the direction that executive are taking the organisation in is sound. Staff engagement and confidence in leadership is at an all-time low.

 

See https://aopa.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/CASA_in_crisis.pdf

[NT5224]

Oh dear. CASA is being reduced down into a bureaucratic soup.

[facthunter]

Not fit for purpose intended. This one should go directly to the minister RESPONSIBLE.. Everything has been starved of funds for the last 6 years. Nev

[planesmaker]

Understaffed? They have more staff per aircraft than many other countries 

[Downunder]

It was coming....

https://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/aviation-safety-inspectors-claim-staff-shortage-amid-casa-restructure-20191203-p53gg0.html

 

 

 

[Jim McDowall]

Professionals Australia is just another union seeking to enhance the pay and number of jobs for its members. From its website:

Welcome to Professionals Australia

 

We are a network of 25,000 Australian professionals working together for a better future for all our members. We want to make sure Australian professionals get the respect, recognition and reward we deserve.

 

Engineers Australia rolls out the same sort of stuff regularly highlighting the infrastructure underspend.

Such a document should be disregarded as the organisation is clearly batting for its members and seeking to recruit new members through its advocacy.

A report commissioned by Government and authored by a properly credentialed firm would have more credibility.

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, Jim McDowall said:

A report commissioned by Government and authored by a properly credentialed firm would have more credibility.

At least a report prepared by an independent body.

[onetrack]

Seeing as 2/3rds of the worlds commercial aircraft are grounded, and are likely to be for an extended period, that could even be a couple of years, one has to wonder why CASA isn't downsized accordingly?

[turboplanner]

(a) Did anyone notice it was Professions Australia material (well a couple did)

(b) Did anyone notice AOPA were right in their keeping their profile high (well a couple did)

(c)  Any facts to back up the CASA in Crisis headline?

[pmccarthy]

I think the facts are in the report. Professions Australia is a reputable lobby group.

[Jim McDowall]

28 minutes ago, pmccarthy said:

Professions Australia is a reputable lobby group.

No more than any other union or "peak" body. The line on the bottom of page 10 of the report says it all:

"This publication is for non-commercial use within Professionals Australia and its members."

In other words, it is a marketing document designed to garner support membership within CASA's staff.

[pmccarthy]

Are you arguing that CASA has not run down its technical capabilities while increasing bureaucracy?

[Jim McDowall]

Not at all. Involving CASA staff in the re-organisation or revitalisation of CASA may just be like letting the foxes run the hen house. It has shown itself to be resistant to change over the decades, and much of this is due to the lack of inertia within the organisation. You can't lay all the blame at the feet of the executives if their hands are tied by the industrial relations framework they have to work with. 

As long as GA (in all its forms) is regarded as a poor cousin of the airline industry by those within CASA because it is not as sexy and there is no real potential of migrating your career to a high paying stable job in GA, GA - especially private ops - will always be left at the bottom of the IN tray. Witness the two decades that it took the promulgate Part 149, Part 91, the Part 61 debacle...........

[turboplanner]

3 hours ago, pmccarthy said:

I think the facts are in the report. Professions Australia is a reputable lobby group.

But is it true that CASA is in Crisis?

You know the people on this site hate journalists sensationalising things.

[SplitS]

Fire them all.

Adopt the FAA rules and have a couple of people to enforce them in the commercial space.

Done.

Part 103 👍

[Jim McDowall]

After watching CASA at the RRAT Estimates Committee hearing yesterday, the smug attitude of Carmody and Aleck towards the committee would seem to indicate that they think that CASA is not in crisis apart from constantly complaining that their fuel tax revenue was drastically down - no doubt a pitch for a bail out.

[kgwilson]

As I understood it over the last 20 years or so CASA's staff numbers have doubled at the same time that GA registrations have halved. During that time technology has moved ahead dramatically to reduce manual labour in many areas. The ridiculous delays and changes out of step with other Aviation organisations around the world is one of the issues. Take the RPL. Originally devised in the UK, US, Canada & NZ to allow ageing pilots to continue to fly so long as they could drive a car and implemented in those countries by 2005, it took CASA another 10 years to come up with something completely different and complex.

 

An organisation with its head in the sand and unwilling to push changes through at pace in this fast modern world should self destruct. If it wasn't a government department that would have already happened.

[Yenn]

It is not only CASA that is not performing, the whole of Australia has been dragged down by bureaucrocy, as has been demonstrated by what happens during the covid crisis.

[Bruce Tuncks]

Here's a heretical point of view... I reckon the fewer staff CASA has then the less harm they can do. I think  that South Africa has a much smaller CASA than we have and they are better off there.

If CASA had so few staff that their activities were confined to educating ( as opposed to policing ) then we would have more freedom and probably no less safety. 

[Old Koreelah]

On 16/10/2020 at 6:22 AM, pmccarthy said:

I think the facts are in the report. Professions Australia is a reputable lobby group.

“...a reputable lobby group”

Is that not a contradiction in terms? 

[turboplanner]

1 hour ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

Here's a heretical point of view... I reckon the fewer staff CASA has then the less harm they can do. I think  that South Africa has a much smaller CASA than we have and they are better off there.

If CASA had so few staff that their activities were confined to educating ( as opposed to policing ) then we would have more freedom and probably no less safety. 

If the "we" you're referring to there is RAA, it is supposed to be self-administering, supposed to be doing that educating, so you need to get it up and firing.

[coljones]

On 15/10/2020 at 8:26 PM, Jim McDowall said:

Professionals Australia is just another union seeking to enhance the pay and number of jobs for its members. From its website:

Welcome to Professionals Australia

 

We are a network of 25,000 Australian professionals working together for a better future for all our members. We want to make sure Australian professionals get the respect, recognition and reward we deserve.

 

Engineers Australia rolls out the same sort of stuff regularly highlighting the infrastructure underspend.

Such a document should be disregarded as the organisation is clearly batting for its members and seeking to recruit new members through its advocacy.

A report commissioned by Government and authored by a properly credentialed firm would have more credibility.

A report authored by a law firm (favoured by the government) would engender little faith.  Engineers Australia is a body, through its members, with much technical expertise.  Professions Australia is body representing engineers and other technical professionals at the workface who have intimate knowledge of what is happening, or in this case, what is not happening at the workface. I am a member of both organisations.

[Jim McDowall]

7 hours ago, coljones said:

Engineers Australia is a body, through its members, with much technical expertise.  Professions Australia is body representing engineers and other technical professionals at the workface who have intimate knowledge of what is happening, or in this case, what is not happening at the workface.

No one is saying that these organisations do not represent professional competent people. But the organisations are formed to represent  the interests of their members like any other union or business group. As a result they highlight issues that favour their members interests, for example EA regularly produces reports highlighting the chronic underspend on infrastructure. The obvious direct beneficiaries of any increase in infrastructure spending are engineers in the first instance. Anybody with half a brain who moves outside their immediate comfort zone knows that there has been an underspend on infrastructure for over half a century - it hardly needs EA to produce a report to quantify the estimated value of the underspend. This may have the effect of making the pollies go down their burrows and look for cheaper, softer social spends that may keep their constituents away from their doors. They dont like people complaining about the state of the roads etc as individually the pollies are mostly powerless.

[Flying Binghi]

7 hours ago, coljones said:

A report authored by a law firm (favoured by the government) would engender little faith.  Engineers Australia is a body, through its members, with much technical expertise.  Professions Australia is body representing engineers and other technical professionals at the workface who have intimate knowledge of what is happening, or in this case, what is not happening at the workface. I am a member of both organisations.

 

A quick perusal of the Professions Australia web site didn’t show any global warming histeria so they caint be to bad..🙂

 

 

 

 

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Edited October 22, 2020 by Flying Binghi

[Ryanm]

Going on two months now waiting for an answer to a query to the “Flight Crew Licensing” branch. Got the receipt email, but that’s it. About time I equiped again I guess.