Ongoing Oversight of Air Navigational Service Providers (ANSP), ATCO Training Organisations (TO) and ATCO Initial Training Organisations (ITO)

Requirements

Regulation UK (EU) 2017 /373 ATM/ANS.AR.015 requires the CAA to carry out oversight of certified Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs)

Regulation UK (EU) 2015 /340 ATCO.AR.005 requires the CAA to carry out oversight of certified ATCO training organisations (TOs) and Initial Training Organisations (ITOs)

Such oversight will normally take the form of audits of certified organisations over a 24-month cycle although this may vary for ITOs.

The audits will be carried out against the requirements of the relevant regulations.

Audit Plan

An annual audit plan will be published on the CAA web site in November each year.

Prior to the planned dates the CAA will liaise with ANSPs/TOs/ITOs to confirm actual dates, which will be formally notified by the issue of an Audit Notification Form.

The Audit

Audits will be carried out by CAA Inspectors ATS and/or ATS Inspecting Officers and/or Safety Assessment Engineers.

The audit will be either performed on site or remotely as a desktop audit or a combination of both.

The scope of the audits will cover all relevant requirements of the applicable regulations over the 24-month cycle.

The audit will take the form of an opening meeting to outline the audit plan and to discuss any outstanding findings from previous audits, followed by the audit in line with the planned scope and a closing meeting to discuss audit conclusions.

Auditees are requested to ensure that all relevant personnel and facilities, as requested, are available during the audit.

Audit findings

Any non-conformities with the requirements of the regulations and auditor’s observations will be recorded and made available to the auditee in the form of an Oversight Report in pdf format.

Findings will be categorised as level 1, 2 or Observation which are defined as follows:

Level 1

Any non-compliance with an applicable regulation or requirement, the organisation’s own processes or procedures, approved training material or with the terms and conditions of any certificate/designation or approval which poses a significant risk to flight safety and/or a significant degradation of training, or otherwise call into question the service providers capability to continue operations.

Level 2

Any non-compliance with an applicable regulation or requirement, the organisation’s own processes or procedures, approved training material or with the terms and conditions of any certificate/designation or approval which could lower or endanger safety and/or result in a degradation of the training provided.

Observations

An observation may be raised where there is potential for future non-compliance if no action is taken, or where the auditor wishes to indicate an opportunity for improvement or has identified something that is not good practice. Corrective action is not obligatory for an observation, but acknowledgement and the notification of any intended action is required. If the auditee rejects an observation, the rationale for rejection must be justified.

Responses to findings

On completion of the audit, in addition to the Oversight Report, the auditor will provide an Audit Response Document (ARD) in word format.

The ARD will contain all the audit non-compliances and observations and is to be completed by the auditee with their analysis of root cause and proposed corrective action plans (CAPs )for each non-compliance and the acceptance or rejection of observations.

If the auditee considers that the target date for the closure of a finding shown on the ARD does not provide sufficient time for the implementation of a corrective action plan, the auditee is to enter their proposed revised initial target date.

Details on the completion of an ARD and the required timelines are provided in the ARD guidance to ANSPs document and below.

Auditees are to complete the ARD and return to the relevant CAA inspector (auditor), shown on the ARD, within the applicable timelines, see required actions below.

Closure of findings

The corrective action plans and target dates for implementation are to be agreed with the relevant CAA inspector (auditor).

Findings will not be closed until evidence is provided of the implementation of the agreed corrective action plan.

Where multiple findings have been raised it may be necessary for there to be several iterations of the ARD until the closure of all findings is achieved.

On completion the auditor will issue a final Oversight Report and a final ARD indicating the closure of all findings.