Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300
- 302)
WEDNESDAY 8 DECEMBER 1999
SIR MALCOLM
FIELD, MR
RICHARD PROFIT
AND MR
P GRIFFITH
300. Have you considered what measures might
be needed in order to ensure in the future that the staff of NATS
are able to report freely and confidentially any problems arising
given that there were disciplinary actions taken against them
when they sought to express their opinion?
(Mr Profit) If it is a safety incident NATS staff
now have, and always will have, three mechanisms to report to
us. They can report, and do report, on the open mandatory occurrence
reporting scheme. They can report to us confidentially under the
current mandatory occurrence reporting scheme. They can use the
confidential human factors programme which is not run by us, we
pay for it, it is an independent body. Of course, with the change
in whistle blowing legislation they will now have the ability
to report directly to the—I am not sure of the term—Ombudsman
for the industry. Those mechanisms will not change with privatisation.
My understanding of the issue regarding the College at Hurn was
that the controllers, who are instructors incidentally, they are
not operational controllers, who wrote that particular letter
were not complaining about safety issues, they were raising their
concerns about the mechanism of privatisation which is really
a concept problem as opposed to a specific incident problem. There
is the incident reporting mechanism for specific safety incidents
which can always be reported to us. I must say we have had a lot
of meetings both with the union, that is BALPA, and also with
the air traffic controllers' union, to explore the safety concerns
that come with privatisation. I understand well their concerns
because there is going to be a change in management and there
is always a risk in culture change when you get a change in management
like that. We are well aware of those concerns, it is our job
to make sure that they do not result in a change in the way safety
is managed in NATS and it certainly will not change the way we
regulate NATS.
301. Do you think that, in fact, air traffic
control is likely to become more globalised as we move on?
(Mr Profit) I fear this is inevitable. Mr Semple and
Sir Roy gave their solution for the future and this was speculative.
If you look a little bit further than ten years, because ten years
is not a long time, the assumption was made that a lot of the
new systems will be NATS ground based systems and there is a whole
different scenario where they might be satellite based systems
and most of the conflict resolution is carried out on the flight
deck of aircraft which would totally change the role, function
and future of National Air Traffic Services. There are different
scenarios that one could paint depending on how far forward one
goes.
302. Thank you, gentlemen.
(Sir Malcolm Field) Thank you very much.
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