What do ATOs actually do?
Mick Toller has openly stated that CASA is "doing a lot of flight checks."
The problem seems to be that then (about 2 years ago) and now, no reputable flight school can remember the last time anybody did one.
Not only that, but most schools are happy about that situation because they have no confidence that the whole process would benefit from the oversight of the quality of the kind of CASA people who would be likely to be involved.
CASA (to the best of anybody's knowledge) has NO guidelines for
a.) the conduct of flight tests by CASA officers,
b.) the oversight by CASA officers of flight tests from the back seat (and subsequent de-briefings and revies of assessment decisions.) OR
c.) the reassessment of a test candidate by a CASA test officer/FOI, following an ATO decision.
It is significant that a large number of former CASA FOIs are now doing something for a fee, that they never (or rarely) did on a salary; and that competent and highly experienced GA individuals are being told there's an over-supply and there's no room for them.
The worst affected are those competent and highly experienced GA people who will not pass a dud. As a result their business drops off, and eventually they're taken off the list.
If that's not corruption, there must be another name for it that I haven't heard.