Audit of CASA by federal Auditor General

[Markdun]

Here is your opportunity to let our wonderful federal auditor (of fame for exposing all the federal ‘rorts’ in spending our money unlawfully as per the sports rorts etc etc etc etc etc).  But remember the AG’s intention is that CASA more effectively and efficiently implement and enforce the legislation and sub-ordinate regulations, not assess whether such regulation is over-burdensome or unecessary.

 

https://www.anao.gov.au/work/performance-audit/the-civil-aviation-safety-authority-casa-planning-and-conduct-surveillance-activities

 

 

[onetrack]

How about someone recommend that all CASA operations be "outsourced" to private enterprise, to realise major efficiency gains? 

 

After all, the Govt regularly does the same to many other public services, in the name of "efficiency" and "reducing costs".  Or is the sacred cow called CASA untouchable, when it comes to efficiency gains, and major cost savings?

 

One argument could be, that as the airline industry has slumped to about 30% of its former size, then perhaps CASA needs to go on a similar size-reduction exercise?  

[walrus]

Outsourcing CASA will just increase our costs.

[kgwilson]

I believe CASA staff levels increased over 50% in the same time period that GA aviation reduced by 40%. %ages might be slightly out but this was widely reported within the industry a few years ago.

[Markdun]

Good point.  I thought the same about Airservices ‘land grab’ for class C airspace at a time of falling GA traffic.  My impression is that tge auditor is particularly interested in how CASA does or doesn’t do enough on compliance/enforcement in RPT and commercial, along the lines, it’s no good having rules if everyone, particularly the shonky ones, are ignoring them.

[walrus]

My own anecdotal enquiries of the occasional Qantas pilot is that CASA hasn’t had the technical ability to supervise a major airline for at least the last thirty or more years. One of them told me: “they asked questions and we fed them bullshyte answers till they went away”.

 

‘’However the more important question is whether CASA has more political clout than Qantas? I think not.

 

As for the AG Department, they know nothing about aviation. They can check the paper clip stock records and that’s as far as it will go.

[turboplanner]

3 minutes ago, walrus said:

My own anecdotal enquiries of the occasional Qantas pilot is that CASA hasn’t had the technical ability to supervise a major airline for at least the last thirty or more years. One of them told me: “they asked questions and we fed them bullshyte answers till they went away”.

 

‘’However the more important question is whether CASA has more political clout than Qantas? I think not.

 

As for the AG Department, they know nothing about aviation. They can check the paper clip stock records and that’s as far as it will go.

The Auditor-General as his name implies is an auditor rather than a forensic Manager. 

I involved the Victorian Auditor-General in a road project which was suspect. He handled it by employing a specialist Consultant, the consultant drived most of his income from the State Government and apparently suffered an eyesight episode on the job (a bit like your paper clip stock records)

 

You also have to be careful of the stories like the Qantas one which comes from  prescriptive administration where obfuscation is an art form, and unless the obfuscators are caught, any disaster is the responsibility of whoever prescribes the rule or regulation. CASA does both prescriptive (as in CARS/Strict  Liability) the same as the road authorities and non prescriptive (which includes Self Administering Organisations) where they may set a recommended benchmark or outcome and it's the responsibility of the person or organisation to achieve the result, in which case feeding them bullshyte just results in them ensuring you understood the benchmark, then letting you hang yourself (in broad terms).

[Markdun]

I think you will find the federal auditor, Grant Hehir, has quite a good track record.  This is not a paper clip counting exercise.  I expect the auditors people will not only listen to CASA, but also talk to those in the industry.

i, too, have had experience in accompanying auditors on random financial compliance audits a federal grants program which I managed (generally spoken of these days ‘rorts programs’) ....I was amazed at the sloppiness of state QANGOs like regional development boards versus the meticulousness of community not-for-profits.  My program was also subject to a federal auditor-general performance audit.  They reasonably quickly identified a program we continued funding millions of your dollars to, that had absolutely no hope of succeeding, including my note to our ‘board’ that handing out a $5000 cheque to every rate payer would have delivered 4 times the benefit of the proposal they agreed to fund.  Luckily for my Dept I also convinced them to advise the Minister to abolish that part of the program...and he declined.  The Auditor gave that a tick, because the stupidity was a well documented political decision, not unlawful or bad administration.

[RossK]

Will the AG be looking into CASA's handling of the Bristell saga ? 

That would be interesting