“Or is the queue not being fairly formed down there?”
There is no significant queue or waiting list for OJTI courses at LACC. Every ATCO deemed suitable will be on an OJTI course at the first possible opportunity. This is what I meant by “fairness not coming into it”.
“…I hear what you say about your training burden, but I think you'll find that other units have a similarly large trainee to OJTI ratio…”
I did not say anything about training burden or OJTI to trainee ratio. I said we have the largest training commitment in the country, the most trainees and therefore the most OJTIs. That means, in the context of this discussion, that we fill the most places on the OJTI courses, so they tend to be scheduled to suit our needs, cutting down any possible delay “due waiting lists or bad admin”. One of the advantages of being at a big unit.
“My understanding is that SRG/CAA require 12 months, but NATS as a company policy require 24. Therefore if NATS have people training in under 24 months, but greater than 12, they're breaking nobody's rules but their own.”
No. The extra 12 months is not NATS policy or any sort of rule, it is part of an agreement with the Unions that, at LACC, has been applied appropriately and with common sense.
LACCs approach to OJTI training means that all but a few ATCOs will be sent on an OJTI course after being valid for two years, without a great deal of consideration as to their suitability for the task. A few more will not be attested after their courses if their results were considered poor, but the over whelming majority will go on to instruct by their 2 year anniversary.
Although this method of “selection” is far from ideal it is not as bad as it sounds. Most ATCOS make competent Instructors, a few make really good ones. We monitor our OJTIs annually through an OJTI Competency Assessment scheme, taking feedback from the students and other OJTIs. Remedial training can (and has) been given to OJTIs who are considered not to be up to standard. ATCOs have also been removed from Instructing, sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently. Our difficulties begin when the pool of OJTIs for a particular sector group on a watch contains only competent instructors and no good ones. With a lot of LACCs OJTIs doing the maximum amount of training, any weaknesses or incompatibilities with a student become far more apparent. This does not make them bad instructors, often the OJTIs are the first to spot the problem. In the past reducing the amount of time that OJTI had with that student (sometimes to nil) would solve the problem. That is often not an option these days.