[Peetwo]

Via the CASA Board: https://www.casa.gov.au/about-us/who-we-...april-2022

Our Board meeting 28 April 2022

The Board of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) meets six times per calendar year to fulfill its obligations under Section 53 of the Civil Aviation Act 1988 to decide the objectives, strategies and policies to be followed by CASA; and ensure that CASA performs its functions in a proper, efficient and effective manner.

The second meeting of the CASA Board in 2022 was held on 28 April at the CASA Adelaide Regional Office. The members welcomed Professor Felipe Gonzalez to his first meeting since his appointment by the Deputy Prime Minister on 23 March 2022 on a three-year term.

Prior to the meeting, the Board met with the Executive management teams of two local flying training schools, Flight Training Adelaide (FTA) and Hartwig Air. Discussions were informative and respectful and provided a number of take-aways for the Board to consider.

The Board also hosted an industry event on the evening of 27 April, inviting a cross section of representatives from all industry sectors to meet with the Board in a relaxed and informal environment. It provided an opportunity for industry to discuss their issues with the Board members in person and mingle with their peers, the CASA Executive team and CASA staff from the Adelaide Office. These events will continue to be held around the country whenever the Board hosts a meeting outside of Canberra.

CASA Board meetings follow a theme-based agenda focusing on organisational matters and operational matters that affect the aviation industry. The organisational matters centre around CASA’s corporate governance, financial position, status of major projects, cyber security issues and general health of the CASA workforce.

Consistent with its focus on the wellbeing of CASA staff and the culture of the organisation, the Board established a sub-committee to focus on CASA’s People and Culture matters. The committee, chaired by Board member Michael Bridge, held its first meeting on 27 April. This committee will report directly to the CASA Board.

The Board was briefed on accidents and incidents data and performance results against the national regulatory oversight program of work.

Key matters considered by the Board included:

The development of a General Aviation (GA) Workplan (that was published on the CASA website 2 May 2022)
The regulatory pipeline of new priorities and changes to the regulatory framework following the release of the Flight Operations Regulations in December 2021
The stresses on the current system across the major carriers impacting both air and ground crews in a post COVID environment as traffic and passenger number return to normal
CASA’s regulatory oversight model and then engagement with industry by front-line staff
aviation medical processing times
improvements to internal systems that support industry’s interaction with CASA.
Publication of our GA Workplan is an important milestone. The workplan outlines the support program for our GA community and includes timeframes for implementation and the actions that CASA is taking to address some long-standing issues in the GA sector. The Board will actively monitor CASA’s progress to meet its deliverables against the proposed timeline.

Significant investment is being made to develop internal systems that better support industry’s engagement with CASA. Investment in this capability will automate many of the currently manual processes and workflows and will deliver end to end communications between CASA and industry via the on-line portal, removing the need for email. Increased online capability will enable industry to access more self-service processes, reducing current wait times for CASA’s data entry requirements.

Unfortunately, due to illness, the planned strategy session with members of the CASA Executive team could not go ahead. Detailed examinations of strategic risks and emerging technologies will be picked up as part of the next meeting, which is scheduled for 23 June 2022 in Brisbane to coincide with the Rotortech conference.

Air Chief Marshal (Ret’d) Mark Binskin AC
Chair, CASA Board

P2 comment: Instead of these Biskin promotional CASA puff pieces we're currently receiving, why is it not possible to actually give industry the minutes of the meeting? IMO most industry participants would much rather see the Board doing it's job properly in over sighting CASA (warts and all) and holding the executive to account. - 

MTF...P2