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Airways overhaul a futile mission


12:00amEAN HIGGINS

A leading consultant on the OneSKY air traffic control program quit when he realised it was impossible to achieve within budget.

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Air traffic control overhaul ‘impossible within budget’

A former RAAF test pilot dubbed “The Million Dollar Man” for his consultancy role on the $1.5 billion OneSKY air traffic control program has revealed he quit the project when he realised it would be impossible to achieve the ­objectives of Airservices Australia and Defence within the allocated budget.

Harry Bradford has broken his silence to tell The Australian that government-owned Airservices, which runs the nation’s civilian air traffic management and navigation system, was not cut out, at least a few years ago, to manage a highly ambitious project such as OneSKY.

He said the objectives of OneSKY were “brilliantly conceived” and the government should “keep the faith”, but the project would “cost what it will cost” and politicians “will therefore have to find the funds to achieve this outcome”.

Mr Bradford’s comments follow The Australian’s exposure this week of the Australian National Audit Office’s damning review of OneSKY, which seeks to integrate civilian and military air traffic control into a single system more advanced than any in the world.

ANAO determined the project was running at least 2½ years late, might not deliver value for money, suffered from conflicting management styles and goals ­between Airservices and Defence, and would need a further cash ­injection if it were to achieve its objectives.

Mr Bradford, who was ­engaged as lead negotiator by Airservices early in the project to work towards a contract with the preferred prime contractor, French aerospace and defence system group Thales, said he and other consultants worked hard for standard commercial consulting rates of pay, and achieved some successes, but eventually realised the brief was impossible to fulfil.

“Viewed against programs of similar scale and complexity, most experienced program managers would agree that the probability of achieving the stakeholders’ cost, schedule and capability expectations was zero,” Mr Bradford said. “Defence was used to dealing with large and complex programs, and their inputs and responses were usually coherent and well-considered; Airservices was an organisation that was very good at simultaneously operating and ­incrementally developing a running air traffic control system, but it was not practiced in managing development projects of scale and complexity.”

After 18 months as lead negotiator, Mr Bradford quit in October 2015. “I had formed the view that the negotiations were frustrated,” he said. “I was not prepared to continue being paid to work on a program that I felt was unlikely to achieve Defence’s and Airservices’ required outcomes.”

Mr Bradford had a distinguished air force career, including flying 270 combat missions as a bomber pilot in Vietnam, and as an instructor and test pilot, and was awarded the Air Force Cross.

After leaving the RAAF Mr Bradford worked in a variety of senior management roles in aerospace, including for Hawker de Havilland, British Aerospace and BAE Systems Australia.

Sandy in reply...

Well done Ean H for eliciting this vital information about a mismanagement of public funds. At a time when we are in deficit all the more important. Air Services, like the Commonwealth statutory body relocating to Mr. B. Joyce’s city of Armidale (not pork barrelling!) it is ‘independent’ of government and not actually part of the prescribed Australian Public Service by virtue of the fact that these bodies are not bound by the Public Service and Governance Act.

It’s surely time to question whether the proliferation of these bodies is giving value for the taxpayer dollar. From Deputy PM’s (and Minister supposedly responsible for Air Services) perspective he can say that being an independent body they can move about as they wish. Run fancy programs with no hope of success, no problem they are independent. Like CASA and ATSB a couple of other make work salary factories that between them are killing General Aviation. Alex in the Rises.

MTF...P2