Paul_Sengupta wrote:..
Yet if anyone accuses them of creating work for themselves, jobs for the boys, job creation scheme, typical public sector civil service thinking, you'll get Kanga giving you a long explanation as to why that's not the case!
...
.. but requiring a response (and expecting responses thereto
)
..One could equally argue that the genesis of the change from the 'old' days of FCL in BoT and 'early' CAA was the Central Government ideology which enforced wherever apparently feasible
throughout the 'public sector': outsource or privatise including all technical expertise, including in in-house IT; move Regulation from Civil Servants (few, but who understood the rules and provided rapid throughput in most 'routine' cases) to 'Trading Agencies' of Government (required by Treasury to recover their running costs and make a profit on top); hire new 'clerical' staff only in minimal numbers at minimum conditions (not as 'Established' Civil Servants) to attract them (often inadequate to retain them, so large staff turnover requiring constant retraining is likely), and give them duties based on following 'rote' procedures which allowed only for 'standard' processes; and, of course, accept the lowest tender or otherwise apparent cheapest option when 'buying in' a service such as IT, under threat of discipline including dismissal, personal financial surcharge, or imprisonment, since all involved are still 'in Public Office' (so liable to Criminal charge of 'Misconduct') but not Civil Servants, whereas their outsourced suppliers are not, and can only be sued for breach of contract for failure to deliver; ..
In the
particular case of CAA FCL, there seem to have been at least the following further complications with which the above enforced ideology has had to try to cope:
a. JAA, JAA, EASA (with priority given to harmonising regulations for CAT, onto which GA has been grafted as an afterthought if at all)
b. Departure of experienced staff (in FCL as well as, eg, Survey, oversight of Maintenance organisations, etc) to EASA or to (encouraged by Treasury) early retirements without replacement
c. Genuine attempt by some in GA Unit to enable GA flying by 'derogations' from EASA's 'CAT-based' approaches eg PMD, NPL, LAPL, SSEA .. which, while indeed helping some to continue flying, have led to plethora of different ways of becoming and staying 'legal', which those in FCL are not adequately trained to understand
d. leaving EASA (again, with 'legacy issues' for CAT being the priority) without concomitant (re-)recruitment of experienced and adequately rewarded so retainable administrative staff
In short, perhaps there have
not been enough 'jobs for the [appropriate] boys (or girls)',
not enough '[appropriate] job creation',
not enough of the Civil Service ethos of (I'd say typical, prior to '80s) 'public service with flexibility, empathy, and appropriate training and delegated authority'