The Authority acknowledges the intent of this Recommendation.
The Authority's audit surveillance of operators currently comprises
regular, scheduled audits that are supported by targeted risk-based
audits. A Safety Trend Indicator (STI) was introduced in 1999-2000.
It allows the Authority to determine, in a consistent manner, the
higher likelihood of safety problems occurring with an aviation
organisation. This is one factor that allows the Authority to
decide which operators should be subject to extra, or risk-based,
surveillance. A STI is conducted every six months and after a
surveillance audit and, in developing the STI, the Authority took
into account international practice.
STI is a valuable tool for providing safety trend information on
particular risk issues affecting particular sectors of the industry
at particular locations.
The Australian National Audit Office, in its report, Aviation
Safety Compliance Follow-up Audit - Civil Aviation Safety Authority
(2002), commented favourably on the approach.
The Authority is currently developing an enhanced version of STI
which will capture more data and enhance the Authority's
comparative risk analysis capability. The intention is to monitor
each component of an airline's operations so that it can focus its
audits on the component(s) of an airline that pose the greatest
safety risk.
