Industry Complaints Commisioner Report
Well today is the day that CASA is scheduled to release the Report from the Industry Complaints Commissioner into my matter.
On receipt of the report, I will either be satisfied or unsatisfied, so I thought it might be timely to provide some feedback to Industry. My suggestion would be that AOPA and other organisations consider this feedback in their future dealings with CASA in trying to bring about Organisational Improvement.
I lodged a number of complaints through the ICC during December and January, and the report should be released today ( 6 months later)
Feedback.
The ICC is exceptional. I appreciate that previous incumbents have not been well accepted by Industry, the current position holder is exceptional. He travelled from Canberra to meet with me, and spent considerable time discussing my concerns. I have no doubt that he has the highest levels of honesty and integrity, and I stand by that comment, prior to the release of his report, which may not be to my satisfaction.
However, the Department is grossly under resourced. It was clearly identified to CASA that their actions would cost me $10,000 per week. It should not take 6 months to finalise a report, when the commercial impact is substantial. This department must have further resourcing.
The ICC should have specified criteria published with regards to turn around times. This will provide clarity to industry, and accountability.
The ICC cannot draw their salary from CASA. It is disrespectful to the process, and takes away the credibility. My own report is due today, and its quite likely that CASA will have a different perspective to me. If I know that the person writing and releasing the report draws their salary from CASA its simple human nature that I will feel aggrieved. There are three important words. All significant, but all with different meanings i.e. unfair, unjust, and unlawful. In the eyes of the law they are very different words, with different ramifications. Does the truly independent person hover over the same letters on the keyboard as the CASA employee. I don't know, and I cant cast aspersions, but I am human.
In the interests of improving safety, transparency, effectiveness and credibility.
The office needs more resources allocated to it, and it must be truly independent from CASA. It should also have performance criteria with regard to response times.
Cheers. GB.