Judging by some of the documents BPA Watch has been shown, the quangocrats of the Civil Aviation Authority don't like it when anyone suggests that the CAA not only condones the BPA strategy to establish a lucrative monopoly over parachuting in the UK but actively aids and abets the BPA in various ways.
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CAA: aiding and abetting a monopoly?
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A letter to a journalist from the Business Manager to the
Chief Executive Officer of the CAA stated: "You have suggested that the CAA would act so
as to favour or disadvanage one particular group at the bidding of
another group or organisation. There is no evidence that supports this
suggestion.".
In other words, the denial came from the very
top of the quango overseeing aviation in UK airspace: Chief Executive Officer Richard Moriarty. Weighing up the evidence, anyone with half a functioning brain would recall the old adage: If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, there is a strong chance that it is a duck.
Gordon Duncan, the CAA official said to approve every demand made by BPA Chief Operations Officer and ghost director Tony Butler, is several pay grades below Mr Moriarty and is apparently managed by CAA Oversight Manager James Frampton. However, Mr Frampton reports directly to Richard Moriarty.
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CAA CEO Moriarty: bent?
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Some former BPA directors
speak of a cordial relationship between BPA ghost director Tony Butler and
long-serving CAA CEO Richard Moriarty, who has been described as
enjoying BPA corporate hospitality, including tandem parachute descents.
Some say that the BPA has profited from this relationship. Some
say that BPA Ltd has abused its regulatory powers to drive competitors
out of business and to establish its increasingly lucrative monopoly on
parachuting in the UK.
In
fairness to the new CAA Chair Sir Stephen Hillier and Group Director Rob Bishton, they inherited the CAA-BPA
relationship along with CEO Richard Moriarty. However, they have been alerted to a number of questions
over BPA management practices under Moriarty and former CAA Chair Dame Dierdre Hutton, described in the British media as "Queen of the Quangos" and "the great quango hopper". These are two of the more charitable descriptions of Hutton, who was seen as highly unqualified for the CAA post by many aviation professionals.
Far from seeking answers themselves to
these questions, CAA quangocrats continue trying to force parachute training organisations, pilots and instructors to work through the BPA. Disgruntled CAA staff have said that the orders come from Richard Moriarty and that he shares a number of personal interests with the BPA's Tony Butler.
The governing legislation stipulates that "The CAA must grant a parachuting permission
if it is satisfied that the applicant is a fit person to hold the permission
and is competent to conduct parachuting safely, having regard in particular to
the applicant’s (a) previous
conduct and experience; and (b) equipment,
organisation, staffing and other arrangements.".
In practice, however, the CAA refers all applications to BPA Ltd and if BPA Ltd does not approve these applications, they are either declined or subjected to a seemingly endless administrative process. Another method used to guarantee the BPA Ltd monopoly involves high fees that the CAA then declines to itemise.
In one rare case concerning a PTO operator who bypassed BPA Ltd and obtained Approved Person status from the CAA, the operator received a visit from two senior BPA figures –– named as Tony Butler and Tye Boughen –– who expressed their displeasure in blunt terms.
Shortly afterwards, the CAA withdrew the PTO operator's AP status. Not long after this, according to the PTO operator, Tye Boughen telephoned him about a upcoming examination to earn the BPA-approved examiner rating and told him not to bother attending as he would not pass the exam.
Until
recently, as BPA Watch wrote, BPA Ltd's website claimed that CAA had delegated regulatory
oversight to the BPA. There are also minutes of BPA Council meetings in which this claim appears.
Senior CAA and BPA Ltd management declined to comment but the wording on BPA Ltd's website was recently changed and now states: "We regulate our sport under an Exposition with the Civil Aviation Authority.".
Former
paratrooper and Red Devils member Ian Marshall served as a BPA Ltd
Director and Council member for twenty-seven years. Marshall says of the
Exposition that "the BPA ghost directorate refuses to
show it to directors and council members. What are they hiding?".
A
source close to the BPA Council suggested that this very recent
revision was imposed upon the autocratic Mr Butler and his cronies by
CAA directors worried about BPA Watch's revelations and the growing
refusal of BPA-affiliated Parachute Training Organisations to continue
tolerating some have openly described as BPA extortion and fraud.
BPA Ltd does not seem to spend much time or money on the safety aspects of their regulatory activities, as the shocking toll of fatalities and life-changing injuries since 1996 indicates. In the financial year 2018-2019, BPA Ltd spent just over £2,100 on safety but reportedly paid its COO and other ghost directors six-figure salaries.
Some say that BPA Ltd has abused its regulatory powers to drive competitors out of business and to establish its increasingly lucrative monopoly on parachuting with the assistance of the CAA.
Another
question that clearly causes unease in the CAA and BPA corridors of
power concerns the regulatory powers apparently given by the CAA to the
BPA. ]
As a barrister who who acted for an airfield and parachute drop zone
owner remarked: "The CAA is just a quango. It would have needed
ministerial authorisation to delegate this power to the BPA.
"However,
the more salient question hiding in plain sight doesn't concern a
possible overstepping of its powers by the CAA but whether the CAA even
had these powers to delegate in the first place. The Air Navigation
Order 2016, for instance, suggests otherwise.".
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Letter of the law: no CAA oversight over parachuting?
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The ANO 2016 as quoted above casts doubt on the CAA's jurisdiction over parachuting itself, stating unequivocally that parachuting falls under the Health and Safety Executive. Parachutists some under CAA regulations whilst abroad aircraft but once they exit and clear the aircraft, CAA authority ends
The pilot cannot permit parachutists to exit his aircraft unless he has
a Parachuting Permission granted by the CAA. Critics of the
tightly-knit relationship between the CAA and the BPA say that the CAA
refuses such permissions if the BPA does not approve of them.
In this way and others, the CAA facilitates the BPA monopoly on parachuting, thereby making a mockery of CAA claims not to favour any organisation or individual over another.
BPA Ltd has been able to amass millions of pounds over the years
despite its claimed not-for-profit amateur status because, say former
BPA Ltd directors, the CAA has only charged the firm a fraction of the
fees that ought to have been paid according to the CAA's own Scheme of
Charges.
Others say that the millions are related in part to the BPA's income from student skydiver or temporary membership fees. As BPA Watch revealed, BPA-affiliated PTOs have to pay BPA Ltd a fee for every provisional membership related to tandem skydiving. Tandem skydiving is a £20 million-plus per annum business.
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BPA: cooking the books?
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Based on
published figures, BPA Watch had arrived at a figure of £1,124,600 per annum
but the true income, say PTO rebels, is twice as much. Whatever the
case, these figures are somewhat more than the £4,066 declared as income
from temporary membership in BPA Ltd's most recently published Annual
Statement.
In
addition to this, the CAA could be described as accessories to the
shocking toll of skydiving deaths and life-changing injuries since 1996,
when the CAA effectively delegated regulatory oversight to BPA Ltd
through the Exposition to which BPA Ltd's website now makes reference.
The forty-four known fatalities during this period aside, BPA COO Tony Butler –– employed for years as one of the firm's two national safety officers –– claims to have investigated some sixty deaths for the BPA since 1982, some which were due to negligence, manslaughter and murder.
These temporary membership fees
are in effect a fee imposed on the PTOs by the BPA in return for the BPA affiliation
they need in order to have CAA permission to organise parachute courses and
events. As BPA Watch revealed, the insurance BPS Ltd forces on members and temporary members seems to be worthless.
Some
PTO operators and other critics of the BPA have described the insurance
requirements as a scam amounting to extortion. Others say that the BPA
substantially understates the income it receives from PTOs each year the
levy imposed on PTO customers for temporary BPA membership. Over half
of this levy is claimed by BPA Ltd to relate to insurance. For
years, PTOs have tried to get the BPA to show them its insurance
policies because the declared premiums are far higher than any estimates
obtained from leading insurance brokers by PTO owners and operators. BPA Watch explored the question of BPA insurance in Protection Racket and Sidestepping the Law.
As the PTO Paper says: “BS
has been in the position to set pricing without meeting too much resistance
from stakeholders. This has resulted in a non-profit business where there is [sic]
significant excess earnings. This may have led to poor focus on financial
efficiency and less considered spending.”.
While
CAA authorisations are, of course, essential for any form of flight
in United Kingdom airspace, they could be provided at a fraction of the
tariffs the CAA demands from applicants whilst apparently exonerating
BPA Ltd from such tariffs.
In any final analysis, the CAA could be said to be failing in its duty to British taxpayers to collect the appropriate fees from BPA Ltd. In this way, taxpayers could be said to be subsidising the cost of the shocking number of fatalities and life-changing injuries suffered by skydivers because of the failure of the regulator to regulate safety.
BPA Ltd has been described as "allergic to Health and Safety legislation and regulations and the most recent edition of its CAP 660, published by the CAA in March 2020, seems decidedly light on Health and Safety compared to other Civil Aviation Publications.
However, the BPA-CAA CAP 660 does appear to establish a monopoly that even extends to military parachutists. The CAA counters that CAP 660 was subjected to public consultation, an assertion challenged as stretching the truth by critics of the cosy relationship between the CAA and BPA Ltd.
The BPA is clearly attempting to establish a monopoly on parachuting in the UK and the CAA is clearly aiding and abetting the BPA in this goal. Either lower and middle CAA management is lying to the Chair and CEO of the CAA or the quango is rotten from top to bottom.
Don Canard
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BPA COO Tony Butler
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Roman Kandells
