I just looked up the piece (I confess, on my Readly subscription, as I find it more legible). Yes Ian, I agree totally - most major public bodies have an independent overseeing board. CAA does have such a board of-course, here it is...
https://www.caa.co.uk/Our-work/About-us ... and-staff/Absolutely not one of whom comes from any part of the aircraft operating, designing, or maintaining communities at any scale of aircraft. They are all either CAA employees, or professional committee-sitters (or both!).
Various overseeing groups have existed over the years. The Airworthiness Requirements Board, the GACC, and so-on. But CAA have always carefully engineered their removal whenever they started to actually achieve anything useful to the operating communities. Plus they were always relatively low down the pecking order, not overseeing the authority's work as a whole.
Very well said.
I think that what's probably called for is an overall independent overseeing board, with the power to appoint specialist sub-committees, and the teeth to force timely changes to policy and behaviours where they see it as appropriate.
There's an excellent model for this in the LAA and BMAA councils.
G
I am Spartacus, and so is my co-pilot.