Civil Aviation Safety Authority’s (CASA) director of aviation safety (DAS) Mark Skidmore is embarking on a “significant change program” as part of efforts to improve service delivery.
The nation’s aviation safety regulator needed to “do better at delivering regulatory services to the aviation community”, Skidmore said in the August CASA Briefing.
“As part of our efforts to strengthen the contribution CASA makes to the Australian aviation safety system I have embarked on an internal change program,” Skidmore said.
“It is clear to me from both internal and external feedback, as well as my evaluation of the Federal Government’s response to the Aviation Safety Regulation Review, that a range of changes are required. From talking with many people I understand our service delivery can be inconsistent and applications can sometimes get passed unnecessarily between different areas of CASA, slowing down our response times.”
Skidmore said he was committed to the significant change program, adding reforms to the organisation would be undertaken progressively to minimise disruption to CASA’s operations.
All CASA’s processes would be under review in efforts to determine where and how the most effective improvements could be made to “deliver consistent, effective, efficient and timely regulatory services to the aviation community”.
“The plan is to have key changes in place by the middle of 2016, with a number of steps being taken between now and then,” Skidmore said.
“This approach allows us to build on the positive things CASA does and to ensure important safety outcomes continue to be delivered. The overarching aim of the change program will be to develop a more constructive engagement between CASA and all sectors of the aviation community.”
Skidmore said CASA would soon set out its regulatory philosophy, outlining how the organisation would be a “strong, fair and responsive safety regulator that works with the aviation community to achieve optimal safety results”.
CASA announced a new directive in June, which said, among other things, that aviation safety regulations must be shown to be necessary and developed with a view to addressing known or likely safety risks that cannot be addressed effectively by non-regulatory means alone.
Further, the directive said: “If a regulation can be justified on safety-risk grounds, it must be made in a form that provides for the most efficient allocation of industry and CASA resources. Regulations must not impose unnecessary costs or unnecessarily hinder levels of participation in aviation and its capacity for growth.”
Regional Aviation Association of Australia (RAAA) chairman Jim Davis described the directive as a “landmark document”, adding that the RAAA stood “ready to assist” in meeting its stated objectives.
