Glen Buckley and Australian small business -V- CASA

[glenb]

PART FIVE

CONSIDERATION FOURTEEN-APTA MADE A NUMBER OF ATTEMPTS TO SUBMIT ACCEPTABLE CONTRACTS, BUT CASA REJECTED ALL ATTEMPTS

You will recall that when CASA placed restrictions on the business's ability to trade by way of a 7-day surety of operations, they placed a requirement for contracts.

Embarrassingly for CASA, they realized only after sending that notification that, APTA had already provided copies of our contract on multiple occasions, and in fact, we had emailed a copy to Mr. Crawford, now the Acting CASA CEO approximately 12 months earlier. I also had a meeting with CASA personnel in the CASA Offices where I provided copies of contracts. These facts are now not in dispute with CASA.

CASA will contend that they made a number of “good faith attempts” to help me resolve the contracts issue. As the person directly involved, that is very much NOT the case and would urge you to consider the following. The relevant attachments to this post can be found at Post #1464 at PPRuNe Glen Buckley and Australian small business -V- CASA - Page 74 - PPRuNe Forums

CASA sent the notification placing restrictions on the business's ability to trade by way of a 7-day surety of operations and demanding that I provide contracts.

I pointed out to CASA that previously APTA had initiated contracts of its own prerogative, and that they had been provided to CASA on multiple occasions, and I provided my evidence of that assertion.

CASA then reluctantly agreed that they did in fact have the contracts, yet CASA did not lift the restrictions on the business's ability to trade, and they remained in place over the 8 months, until I could no longer meet my obligations for wages and salaries.

I asked CASA to make a decision against my existing contracts they would not. I wanted CASA to make a decision because then I would have something I could attend to, or alternatively something that I could challenge in the AAT.

CASA simply advised that my contracts were not acceptable. Consider the following timeline. The correspondence relating to this topic can be found as an attachment at Post #1464 on PPRuNe Glen Buckley and Australian small business -V- CASA - Page 74 - PPRuNe Forums

January 25th, 2019, 3 months after CASA place restrictions on the business's ability to trade, CASA write to me asking for information in my contracts. By now, my entire customer base has lost confidence as they have been operating for 3 months with no future certainty about the organization. No student enrolments have been taken, and staff is concerned about their jobs. Existing APTA Members are by now making plans outside of APTA as it appears the issues are significant if they have not been resolved after 3 months.

February 18th, 2019, I write to CASA advising that their suggested changes to the contract have been fully embedded, and this correspondence also notifies CASA that one of our Members, at the Ballina base was ceasing operations due to the ongoing delay in getting approved. This correspondence also answers questions that CASA put to me. Most of those answers were already known to CASA as for the first time in Australia we provided full access to APTAs entire system. CASA was able to log into any aspect of our operation at any time from anywhere in Australia. This was an Australian first and ensured the very highest levels of operational control and oversight could be maintained. This correspondence also calls on CASA to act expeditiously because of the commercial impact.

February 19th, 2019, APTA responds to CASA requests and provides signed copies of contracts. These are the same contracts that have previously been supplied to CASA.

February 21st, 2019, I write to CASA and all APTA Members updating them that all CASA requirements have been embedded into a new contract and make plans to move forward, with that new contract.

March 4th, 2019, - Advised by CASA that in fact the embedded changes that CASA had recommended and provided were now not OK and that we now needed to have yet another meeting. That meeting is now scheduled almost 3 weeks later, on March 20th, 2019.

The entire matter should never have commenced but APTA has now had restrictions on its ability to trade for over 4 months. The negative commercial impact and reputational damage is significant.

March 13th, 2019 CASA now places some additional requirements to be embedded into the contracts.

March 15th, 2019 I confirm my availability for a meeting, reaffirm that I am willing to put anything into the contracts that CASA require, ask if CASA are becoming a signatory, and call on them to clearly and concisely stipulate what they require, as they have rejected my most recent attempt which fully embedded all the CASA requirements exactly as CASA advised. I simply am at a complete loss as to what CASA requires. In this correspondence, I am imploring CASA to provide direction as to what they want so that I can promptly attend to it.

By now APTA as a business is decimated, deprived of revenue, staff losing confidence, suppliers losing confidence, and the businesses revenue severely curtailed by CASA actions. My parents have intervened to cover salaries and avoid redundancies, customers are leaving APTA and the business continues to operate under an interim approval that expires on May 13th 2019.

March 26th,2019 I write to Mr. Aleck with yet another attempt at a contract, reiterate that I will put anything into the contracts that CASA directs me to, call again on CASA to clearly identify the changes that they require. This correspondence also once again clarifies the commercial impact and the fact that CASA appears to be targeting APTA. Importantly, in this correspondence, I call again on CASA to make a “decision” so that I have something to appeal. The failure by CASA to make a decision over such a prolonged period is having a devastating impact on the business.

April 9th, 2019 I make a further submission with all new CASA requirements embedded and imploring CASA to resolve this matter.

April 9th, 2019, CASA advises me that the matter is finalized and that we will be returning to Business as Usual, then the email is retracted by CASA and another email sent advising to hold off until CASA legal can approve it.

April 17th, 2019 I am advised that CASA still doesn’t have what they require.

By this stage, my parents have funded $300,000 towards staff salaries, as the business had been starved of revenue for almost 6 months. With no end in sight, and cashflow becoming increasingly difficult I refocused my energies into minimizing the impact of the imminent loss of the business. I simply cannot ask my parents to keep funding well more than $10,000 per week to meet my obligations for wages and salaries.

CASA had still failed to identify what they needed in the contracts. I had made multiple submissions, and the last two submissions embedded CASA suggested text word for word. Still CASA was not satisfied. I am in an impossible situation after 6 months with customers now being forced to leave APTA by CASA, and I am no closer to achieving a contract that satisfies CASA. By now, I was very much of the opinion that CASA had no intention to resolve the issue of the contract.

Consider also that at any time CASA could have fully resolved this issue within 24 hours. From the onset, I made it perfectly clear that I would place absolutely anything in the contracts that CASA requires. They simply needed to provide me their required text. I would have sat with CASA across a table, with my Head of Operations, Personal Assistant and our Technical Writer. We would have raised any concerns with that CASA text, noting it is extremely unlikely that we would have any objections. We would have then embedded the text into the contracts and distributed the new contracts to our Members for return by close of business the next day. All Members were willing to meet those turnaround times. It truly was that simple. It only depended on CASA knowing what it was that they required, and providing that direction to me. The delays that extended for 8 months in resolving this issue were entirely as a result of CASA changing the goalposts, and not knowing what they required. A relatively straightforward matter became extremely difficult to resolve.


CONSIDERATION FIFTEEN- ADMINISTRATIVE HALT PLACED ON ALL APTA APPLICATIONS FOR REGULATORY TASKS.

CASA applied an Administrative Freeze and refused to process APTA applications and regulatory requests throughout the 8-month period. Once CASA initiated that action against APTA they also initiated an “administrative freeze” on all administrative tasks, and the impact of this was significant upon APTA, as no capabilities could be added or renewed. i.e. as a simulator's approval would expire, CASA would not renew it, leaving the asset idle. A new simulator was acquired, and similarly, CASA would not validate it. We applied to add new Key Personnel to the Management team. i.e., a third CASA approved Head of Operations to provide high levels of redundancy, and further the already high levels of operational control, that was put on hold. CASA tried to add new courses that we were fully entitled to deliver, and CASA refused to process these applications. CASA had no basis in law to refuse those applications. The commercial impact of this action on the business and customers was substantial.

APTA as a Part 141/142 Organisation submitted applications to add on new courses, such as low level, multi-crew, etc. CASA would not process those applications. These were courses and capabilities that APTA was fully entitled to deliver. This administrative freeze placed on APTA by CASA was harmful to the business and had no validity because it was a completely separate issue to the reason CASA placed restrictions on the business's ability to trade.

Refer Pprune Post #267,268,271,272,273,274, for further pertinent information.


CONSIDERATION SIXTEEN- APTA ONLY DID WHAT CASA ASKED OF APTA.

If there is any doubt that I was effectively “led up the garden path” by CASA, then I refer you specifically to POST #1395 on PPRuNe which can be accessed here. Glen Buckley and Australian small business -V- CASA - Page 70 - PPRuNe Forums

If you refer to the “underpinning knowledge” component of that post, it will outline the background to the revalidation of APTA as a Part 142 Organisation. We were already operating with the APTA structure i.e. providing AOC coverage for multiple bases and had been for more than a decade.

Part 141/142 was a separate process that CASA required of all flying schools in Australia to undertake, or otherwise, they would have to cease operations in three years.

During that two-year project and revalidation by CASA, every single one of our procedures was overhauled as we drew on our previous experience providing coverage for multiple bases. We attended to over 600 CASA requirements, each of which was CASA assessed and approved. We were attending to CASA requirements in their own checklist with 10 CASA personnel. We embraced all opportunities for improvement in conjunction with those CASA personnel.

The point being is that I had no other option but to undergo the Part 141/142 process. It was something forced upon APTA if it intended to continue trading. We attended to every CASA requirement in the design of APTA and were fully approved by CASA as part of our revalidation 18 months earlier. Surely if CASA was to question our operation, concerns should have been raised then, rather than CASA encouraging and facilitating me to do something that they would later claim was illegal.

I had no option in the design of APTA from day one with CASA to respond directly to CASAs more than 600 stipulated requirements and found in Post # 441. This was a two-year project. I did invest hundreds of thousands of dollars into exceeding every one of the 600 requirements.

To get an indication of the enormity of the task, simply approach Oxford CAE, they completed the process at a similar time to my Organisation. In fact, at the CASA Head of operations conference organized by CASA in Canberra, they put forward a presentation to CASA and attendees on just how enormous, expensive, flawed, and time consuming the process was. It required many thousands of hours dedicated to it. CASA worked side by side with me assessing every one of those 600 requirements that CASA stipulated.



CONSIDERATION SEVENTEEN- THERE ARE NO ALLEGATIONS BY CASA OF ANY REGULTORY BREACHES

For complete clarity, at no stage did CASA ever allege any regulatory breaches until much later in the process. When CASA did much later raise allegations of regulatory breaches which I was compelled to respond to, and resolve to CASAs’ satisfaction, CASA was unable to support any of the allegations, and they were later withdrawn by CASA many months later.

CASA has withdrawn every single allegation as there was no supporting information or evidence for any of them. If my understanding is incorrect, and CASA have any outstanding allegations of any regulatory breaches at all, I call on CASA to bring those to my attention and the attention of your office, and to me. CASA raised no allegations of any regulatory breaches initially when they sent the correspondence in October 2018. The allegations only came much later when CASA identified that they had not written up the audit results. The rewrite of the audit results raised completely new allegations.

You may recall that CASA identified to me that they had erred, and not written up the audit notes months after the audit. CASA committed to having those audit results written up over the weekend and given to me by the following Tuesday at the latest. When the “new” audit now raised allegations of regulatory breaches that were not raised at the CASA Onsite Exit Meeting. More on this topic can be found at Posts # 59, 216, 222, 942, 983, and 1226.

Initially, CASA raised an allegation of a regulatory breach that our signage did not meet the Regulatory size requirements. At this meeting, there were several CASA personnel from my new CMT (CASA oversighting team) present. The truth is that there are no regulatory requirements. At that meeting at the CASA Head Office, I asked if they could direct me to the legislation. CASA advised that they did not have access to the legislation, which seemed unusual in CASAs Head Office. This led me to believe that these people may not have been acting with good intent. CASA advised that they would write to me on this matter. When the correspondence arrived, CASA conceded that there was no regulations but they did offer their opinion on what they required. This was immediately implemented by APTA. This allegation of a regulatory breach was in fact not a regulatory breach but merely an opinion, which I respected and complied with.

There was the written allegation that our Flight School Management System wasn’t working properly. The system was highly advanced, and it did require training. I had extended multiple offers to CASA to provide training for their staff at no charge. CASA never accepted the offer. This was a problem with the CASA Employees capability on the system. There were no “problems” with the system. I do not believe that CASA will dispute that statement.

CASA did make an allegation of multiple breaches of flight and duty times, which is a significant allegation. This occurs when an operator allows a situation to develop where a pilot may fly in an unsafe condition due to overwork and fatigue. Immediately that CASA raised that allegation I wrote back to CASA because I had confidence in the APTA systems that woud not and could not have happened. I simply asked that CASA provide the name of the offending pilots so that I could investigate. CASA could not state the name of the pilot. This was simply ludicrous because the pilots' file is the starting process for the audit. i.e. a flight and duty breach must by its very nature be attached to a pilot.

CASA did later supply a copy of the offending flight and duty times by way of an attachment. It became immediately obvious that CASA had made an error. The system provided contained a predictive capability, so it could look ahead, and effectively say “on your current booking schedule you will exceed your flight and duty in five days’ time, please reschedule your bookings to ensure this doesn’t happen, or you will be unable to despatch your flight in five days’ time. The CASA employee was looking at the red warning flag for a future date, warning of what could happen, if the pilot didn’t reschedule his roster. I think that this CASA employee was caught out by the advanced IT systems that we incorporated and may not have been familiar with the high levels of operational control, that he may not have encountered before. For clarity, there was no breach of flight and duty times based on the information that CASA provided to me.



CONSIDERATION EIGHTEEN- THE LACK OF GOOD INTENT



I wrote to the CASA Board, Executive Management of CASA on multiple occasions raising substantial allegations of misconduct. Despite repeated requests, I was ignored or a period of 6 months. Correspondence to the CASA Board can be found at

· Posts # 1, 41, 44, 76, 82, 85, 98, 107, 147, 148,164,187, 191, 198,199, 260, 287,639, 686, 687, 688, 690, 787,809,920,934,935.936,940,941,946,955,958,976,1080,1088,10 89, 1094,1100,1102,1109,1110, 1115,1140, 1151, 1205,1274,1282,1297,1310, and 1326,



I raised concerns about a new CASA person that was oversight my organisation. My concerns were raised with CASA and that individual initiated the action against APTA and information on this matter can be found at

· Posts # 56, 290, 305, 924



Notifying CASA of the commercial impact refer;

· Posts # 45, 185, 223, 257, 258, 259, 261, 262 , 263, 264, 265, 275, 285, 315, 749, 820, 821, 852, 862, 1001,1141,1178,1191,1192,1193,1194,1196,1197



On matters regarding Craig Martin. The point of these posts is that CASA injected Mr. Craig Martin into the matter to support the CASA Region Manager at the time, Mr. Jones. I provided Mr. Martin with the perfect opportunity to gather my responses and the responses of the CASA employees that I had allegations against. I suggested that he obtain their answers to the same questions. I didn’t need to know the CASA employees’ answers. I only needed to know that he had asked the question of both Parties, as that would have alerted him to the fact that APTA did provide high levels of operational control. Mr. Martin chose not to ask the questions and advised me of such. This was extremely disappointing as it made me concerned that there may be a lack of intent.

· Posts # 84,224



Proposed resolution that I have put forward to CASA.

· Post #1167