Overall

BPA TRESPASSING ON MOD TERRITORY?

JUST ANOTHER SKYDIVING DEATH?

 

Part 1 of 3 by Bravo Three Zero CMIOSH

 

Following the recent skydiving death on 3.9.2021 of Royal Air Force Sergeant and Parachute Jump Instructor Rachel Fisk at RAF Weston-on-the-Green, Thames Valley Police announced: "Thames Valley Police is undertaking a joint investigation with the Health and Safety Executive, supported by the Defence Accident Investigation Branch and British Skydiving.".

 

Long-term observers of the appalling safety record ofBritish Parachute Association Ltd (BPA) trading as British Skydiving wondered if the involvement of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE)  signalled an end to BPA evasion of HSE regulation. However, news quickly leaked out from inside sources that BPA Ltd was running the investigation into Sgt Fisk’s death whilst serving with the Joint Service Adventurous Training unit at RAF Weston-on-the-Green. 

 

Quoted on the RAF website, Group Captain Mark Smith paid tribute to Sgt Fisk: "I have known Rachel personally since she joined the Parachute Jump Instructor Cadre.  She rapidly became an outstanding Instructor and highly valued member of our team.  Our thoughts and condolences are with her family and friends at this distressing time." 

 

As BPA Watch has previously pointed out, BPA Ltd has been the Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) appointee as parachuting regulatory overseer since 1996. BPA Ltd, which pays its senior employees six-figure salaries yet spends just £5,000 per annum on safety-related matters, has presided over an average of two skydiving fatalities a year since the 1980s. 

 

Quite apart from the legally questionable delegation by the CAA to BPA Ltd of such powers, effectively transforming this amateur sports association into a quango, the CAA is not even the Enforcing Authority in relation to parachuting. Once a parachutist or skydiver exits and clears an aircraft in light, the HSE takes over –– or should take over. 

 

Many observers within and without the civilian parachuting industry wondered how the RAF could permit BPA involvement in the investigation of one of its personnel whilst on duty or otherwise at work on RAF or, more precisely, Ministry of Defence (MOD) premises. Those familiar with the cosy relationship between the CAA and the RAF were less surprised. 

 

The news raised some troubling questions:

 

If the CAA is the parachuting Regulator, as it pretends to be, the CAA is surely responsible for any resultant enforcement action following the investigation so why is there no CAA Flight Standards officer present and leading the investigation? 

 

Does the illegal BPA/British Skydiving monopoly –– aided and abetted by the CAA or by rogue CAA officials –– now extend to control over military parachuting? 

 

Does HM Government accept and approve of the CAA quango’s usurpation of the HSE’s role as parachuting Enforcing Authority and its illegal delegation of these powers it has usurped to the BPA Ltd monopoly, which the CAA facilitates?

 

Will the HSE continue to sit idly by and allow its jurisdiction and its powers to be usurped by the CAA-BPA cartel whilst the death and serious injury toll involving individuals at work or under the responsibility of individuals at work continues to rise?

 

How many fatalities need to occur before the HSE assumes its responsibilities, takes enforcement action and prosecutes BPA/British Skydiving (BS) and its company officers past and present under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974?

 

It was not long before BPA/BS officials, portraying themselves as independent experts, acted with the arrogance of those who believe themselves untouchable and unilaterally published an ‘interim report’ into Sgt Fisk’s death on the eve of her funeral, to the reported distress and indignation of the deceased’s family, friends and colleagues. 

 


 

 

 

Any reasonable person would wonder about BPA Ltd’s motives. This interim report was published despite ongoing MOD, Police and, allegedly, HSE enquiries and could serve no purpose other than to prejudice the findings of the other investigators. To the trained eyes of professionals, their motives were blatantly obvious.

 

BPA/BS officials are attempting, as with other fatalities on the firm’s watch, to drive the narrative towards a coroner’s court finding of death by misadventure. According to one of BPA Watch’s inside sources, there was even talk of attributing Sgt Fisk’s death to suicide, which raised echoes of Army Officer Cadet Stephen HIlder’s death in 2003.

 

BPA/BS has a track record of coercing BPA-affiliated instructors appointed as investigators to change reports to align with predetermined and desired outcomes; yet another example of the toxic and dictatorial environment of BPA/BS and its senior officials’ coercive behaviour - a culture of fear driven by threats and bullying.

 

There are also instances of BPA/BS officials being extremely economical with the truth and misrepresenting matters in Court – openness, transparency, honesty and integrity are not in the BPA/BS play book despite all the polished slogans and glossy propaganda and the much-vaunted patronage of HRH The Prince of Wales.

 

Corrupt BPA/BS officials have managed to consistently evade the law and any measure of adequate regulatory oversight for so long now that criminality and connivance now forms an integral part of its DNA. It is embedded in the firm’s corporate culture. The firm’s directors and officials believe themselves to be above and beyond the Law. As one former BPA Ltd director remarked: “It is surprising what can be bought from the CAA for £30,000 per year – a licence to kill and a get out of jail free card!”.

 

The BS Board of Enquiry – ‘the world class experts’ approved by the CAA…

 

Any officially recognised expert or professional person approved to make reports to a Court or an authoritative body will normally be expected to have achieved a high profile or recognised standing within their profession.

 

This standing is generally marked by relevant and officially recognised academic qualifications at post-graduate levels, professional membership or chartered status.

 

Impartiality - the overriding duty is to inform. There should be no bias towards others with an interest in the outcome, which includes disclosure of any vested interests of the expert.

 

Extent and limits of competence - the expert or appointed person is responsible to ensure competence to undertake proposed work and not to carry out any assignment unsupervised or otherwise that requires specialist skills, knowledge, qualifications or specific training that are beyond the extent and limits of demonstrable competence.

 

An evidence narrative - The expert should focus only on the known facts, not supposition, and review what the law requires in the given situation. Then assess the potential non-compliance against the derived criteria. This may be supported via various means, for example; validated research, Approved Codes of Practice and case law.

 

It is incumbent upon those providing opinion or advice to explain to any Court or Authority the extent and limitations of competence (as defined above) together with scope or remit and any vested interest. When individuals or organisations deviate from the above, the Courts and Authorities tend to take a very dim view of such behaviour.

 

The authors of the BPA/BS ‘interim report’ into Sgt Fisk’s death are:

 

Tony Butler –– Chief Operating Officer

 

Jeff Montgomery –– Safety and Training Officer

 

Mark Bayada –– Vice Chair of the BPA/BS Board of Governors 

 

Not one of these three individuals appears to possess any of the officially recognised qualifications required in order to render their findings credible in the eyes of any court or any (impartial) authority.

 

 

BPA Ltd COO Tony Butler: untouchable?

 

Why is the investigation into the death of a serving RAF Senior NCO and trainee Parachute Jump Instructor whilst on duty and therefore at work being led by three individuals with no recognised accreditations, relevant formal qualifications or competence?

 

In 2003, when he was BPA Ltd’s National Safety Officer, Tony Butler told a coroner’s court and attending journalists that he had investigated over sixty skydiving deaths. This begs the question of why this death toll has not been reduced.

 

Messrs Butler, Montgomery and Bayada have no apparent training in complex accident investigation techniques like Fault or Event Tree Analysis or Fail Mode and Effect Analysis. Are they in position because of they are competent or are they deemed competent because of their positions?

 

That is a question that should be put to the CAA. Another question that the CAA should be made to answer is this: exactly what recognised standards and criteria were applied to BPA/BS when the CAA granted the firm its Approved Persons status in 1996 and renewed that status over the years? Was the CAA entitled to grant this status to BPA/BS in the first place? No is the simple answer and the CAA directorate knows it.

 

The Sgt Fisk accident is a case in point. The CAA is only the Enforcing Authority or Regulator whilst parachutists or skydivers are in an aircraft. Once parachutists or skydivers exit and clear an aircraft, regulation reverts to the HSE, as the CAA’s own publication CAP 1484 admits.

 

Had Sgt Fisk’s accident occurred aboard the aircraft or before clearing it –– had she been struck by the aircraft on exiting, for example –– the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) and the CAA would be leading this investigation.

 

There is no direct CAA involvement in this investigation because the CAA is not the regulatory authority in this instance. BPA Ltd trading as British Skydiving claims to represent the CAA as its ‘Approved Person’. Approved for what, exactly?

 

To ensure the lucrative BPA/BS monopoly continues to grow unhindered?

 

To ensure that incompetent BPA/BS employees continue to receive exorbitant salaries?

 

To ensure the continued evasion by the CAA-BPA cartel ofHealth and Safety laws and other legislation?

 

To ensure that the litany of past crimes, illegal activity and cover-ups never come to light?

 

BPA/BS pay the CAA £30,000 to maintain this Approved Person status, thereby facilitating the firm’s illegal commercial monopoly and everyone turns a blind eye to its criminal evasion of the Health and Safety atWork etc Act 1974, including the HSE itself, it seems.

 

If BPA/BS and its protector the CAA quango manage to have Sgt Fisk’s death attributed to misadventure, who will be the beneficiaries of such a whitewash?

 

If anything, British Parachute Association Ltd trading as British Skydiving should be the subject of the Sgt Fisk investigation, as Weston on the Green parachute centre was operating under British Skydiving operations manual and safety assurance processes. This investigation should be led by the MOD and the HSE with the Police on hand to arrest guilty parties.

 

Is it time for HM Government to initiate a statutory inquiry into the CAA-BPA cartel and its unseemly relationship?

 

To be continued...

 

 

 

CAP 660: WHO IS LYING?

One of the various criticisms aimed at the joint Civil Aviation Authority-British Parachute Association code of practice known as CAP 660 is that the CAA rushed the new fifth edition into print early in 2020 without respecting its own review and assessment procedures.

Critics say that the CAP 660 v5 was not subjected to a full stakeholder impact assessment. Responding to a Freedom of Information request about these concerns in February 2020, the CAA stated:

"Various internal CAA and cross-Government stakeholders (such as the Department for Transport) were consulted prior to the public consultation. The external stakeholder consulted was British Skydiving, the parachuting sector’s only Approved Organisation at this time. A wide range of input from has been received during the public consultation period.". 
 
British Skydiving is the trading name of British Parachute Association Ltd (BPA), whom critics accuse of running an illegal commercial monopoly of parachuting in the United Kingdom, aided and abetted in various ways by the CAA.
 

BPA Watch wrote to CAA Legal Director Kate Staples on July 10th 2021 to ask if her legal department had reviewed CAP 660.

From: BPA Watch <bpawatch@gmail.com>
Sent: 10 July 2021 16:24
To: Kate Staples <Kate.Staples@caa.co.uk>
Cc: BPA Watch <bpawatch@gmail.com>
Subject: CAP 660 Review

Dear Ms Staples,

Please could you confirm that your legal department reviewed the fifth edition of the CAP 660 code of practice published by the CAA in 2020?

Yours sincerely,

Don

Kate Staples replied:

From: Kate Staples <Kate.Staples@caa.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2021 at 10:33
Subject: RE: CAP 660 Review
To: BPA Watch <bpawatch@gmail.com>

Thank you for your email.

I can confirm that CAP 660 was reviewed by my team.

Yours sincerely

Kate Staples
General Counsel and Secretary to the Civil Aviation Authority

Tel: 0330 138 3053

My pronouns are: she/her

BPA Watch then sent Kate Staples an FOI request for a copy of her department's review of CAP 660.



From: BPA Watch <bpawatch@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2021 10:42:09 AM
To: Kate Staples <Kate.Staples@caa.co.uk>
Subject: Re: CAP 660 Review
 
Dear Ms Staples,

Thank you for your reply of July 16th 2021. It is reassuring to learn that your legal team reviewed CAP 660. I am therefore lodging a Freedom of Information request with you for a copy of this legal review of CAP 660, together with the compliance assurance that the development process respected the legal requirements relating to Impact Assessment and a suitable and sufficient stakeholder consultation process.

Regards,

Don Canard
BPA Watch

Instead of simply sending us the documents we requested or having a member of her legal department do so, Kate Staples referred our FOI request to a "central team".

From: Kate Staples <Kate.Staples@caa.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2021 at 12:24
Subject: Re: CAP 660 Review
To: BPA Watch <bpawatch@gmail.com>

Thank you for your email.

I will pass your request through to the central team that will coordinate a response.

Yours sincerely

Kate Staples

A year and a half before, the CAA response to a previous FOI request about the review processes pertaining to CAP 660 had stated:
 
"In the process of updating and amending the CAP [the author] has engaged with the key stakeholders and has led the public consultation process and the review of the responses that this has now garnered. Prior to its release, CAP 660 will be reviewed and, once ready for publication, signed off by a senior manager.".
 
But the CAA had not engaged with all of the "key stakeholders". The CAA had, it seems, confined its impact assessment to the BPA and the Department for Transport (DfT). BPA Ltd pays the CAA £30,000 per annum for the Approved Person status facilitating its commercial monopoly on parachuting in the UK.
 
The truth was hidden in plain sight in the first paragraph of Page 2 of the the CAA response to the FOI request, reproduced in full below. The author of the FOI response admitted: "As no major technical or procedural changes have been introduced, an initial impact assessment of the 5th Edition has not been conducted...".








BPA Watch has also seen evidence that the CAA failed to heed warnings during the public consultation process that CAP 660 was not compliant with the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. There is no evidence that the Heath and Safety Executive was consulted about CAP 660 v5. 

According to law –– the Air Navigation Order –– the CAA's responsibility for parachutists ends as soon as parachutists exit and clear an aircraft in flight. At this point, the HSE takes over. In order words, it is the HSE and not the CAA that is the Enforcing Authority in relation to parachuting. At the very least, the CAA is guilty of regulatory overreach.
 
Indeed, as BPA Watch has previously noted, CAP 660 v5 is seen by some critics as codifying evasion by the CAA's delegated regulator BPA Ltd of Heath and Safety Executive (HSE) oversight and regulation.The BPA's COO Tony Butler recently wrote that HSE involvement in skydiving would be "a danger". 

Did Mr Butler, who told a coroner's court in March 2005 that he had "investigated sixty deaths in the UK", mean that HSE oversight would make the sport more dangerous? Or did he mean that it was "a danger" from the viewpoint of BPA Ltd, whose officials might have to take pay cuts to finance any significant increase in safety-related spending by BPA Ltd?

Some observers noted that the revised fifth edition of CAP 660 seemed to be paving the way for BPA interference in military parachuting per se, thereby raising questions regarding national security and a possible risk to the operational readiness and effectiveness of Britain's Airborne and Special Forces.
 

Media reports that the investigation into the recent skydiving-related death at RAF Weston-on-the-Green  of Royal Air Force Sergeant Rachel Fisk of No 1 Parachute Training School is being led by BPA Ltd had observers wondering why this civilian amateur sports association is involved in investigating the death of an RAF NCO on an RAF air base. 

Sgt Fisk joins the growing list of skydiving-related fatalities –– that we know about –– under the BPA monopoly, which is aided and abetted by the CAA. The numerous life-changing injuries suffered by skydivers every year should not be forgotten either.

CAP 660 has been described as an exercise in evasion of Health and Safety regulation by the BPA trading as British Skydiving, an evasion aided and abetted by the CAA. The BPA spends no more than £5,000 per year on safety, which might explain the high death and injury toll on its watch. 

Just under four hours after Kate Staples' response to BPA Watch's FOI request for proof of her assertion that the revised CAP 660 had been reviewed by her legal team,  the CAA's Information Rights Manager Leon Mitchell wrote to us. Mr Mitchell was not the same Information Rights Manager who had written the FOI response of 10.2.2021.


From: FOI Requests <FOI.Requests@caa.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2021 at 16:14
Subject: Your Request
To: bpawatch@gmail.com <bpawatch@gmail.com>

Dear Mr Canard,

I am writing to acknowledge receipt of your application for the release of information held by the Civil Aviation Authority.

If your requirements are unclear, or the information is held by another public authority, we will contact you in the next five working days.  Otherwise the information we are able to disclose will be assembled and made available to you within 20 working days from receipt of your request.  If we are unable to provide any of the information requested an explanation will be provided.

Should you wish to discuss any aspect of this request please do not hesitate to contact us.  Please quote reference F0005357.

Yours sincerely

Leon Mitchell
Information Rights Manager

Communications Department
Civil Aviation Authority

Follow us on Twitter: @UK_CAA

BPA Watch

BPA Watch acknowledged Mr Mitchell's email.

From: BPA Watch <bpawatch@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2021 at 19:48
Subject: Re: Your Request
To: FOI Requests <FOI.Requests@caa.co.uk>

Dear Mr Mitchell,

Ref: F0005357

Thank you for your acknowledgement of my FOI request. I doubt that the documents I have requested from CAA legal counsel Kate Staples is held by another public authority and I believe my request was quite clear.

Yours sincerely,

Don Canard

Almost a month passed before BPA Watch received the following email and attachment from CAA External Response Manager Mark Stevens.

From: FOI Requests <FOI.Requests@caa.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2021 at 12:17
Subject: FOI request to the CAA
To: bpawatch@gmail.com <bpawatch@gmail.com>

Dear Mr Canard

Please find attached the CAA’s response to your request for information.

 Kind regards

Mark Stevens
External Response Manager

Communications Department
Civil Aviation Authority





 

Any neutral observer reading Mr Stevens' letter might wonder how public interest would be served in refusal to comply with our request to Kate Staples for proof of her assurance that the CAA legal department had conducted the requisite reviews of CAP 660. 

Given the high death and injury toll over which the CAA-BPA cartel has presided since 1996, it is certainly in the public interest to know why the CAA rushed CAP 660 v5 into print despite concerns that it was not Health and Safety-compliant.

We responded to Mark Stevens' email and letter.

From: BPA Watch <bpawatch@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 at 07:37
Subject: Re: FOI request to the CAA
To: FOI Requests <FOI.Requests@caa.co.uk>
Cc: <stephen.hillier@caa.co.uk>, <richard.moriarty@caa.co.uk>, Kate Staples <kate.staples@caa.co.uk>, Rob Bishton <Rob.Bishton@caa.co.uk>

Dear Mr Stevens,

Thank you for your reply.

The citing of legal privilege as grounds for refusing to confirm that the CAA followed due process in relation to CAP 660 looks highly dubious in the light of the ministerial-level complaint recently lodged against your quango by a veterans parachute display team, a complaint that quotes correspondence between Rob Bishton and myself and which has been raised with the CAA by the current Aviation Minister's office. The complaint contends amongst other things, that the CAA misled a previous Aviation Minister about the Pegasus Display Team.

I will therefore give you and your superiors a second chance to comply with my FOI request.

Yours sincerely,

Don Canard

We received a response to the effect that the CAA would instigate an internal review of our FOI request. On 1.9.2021, the CAA's Head of Analysis and Insights wrote to BPA Watch.


From: Kit Beynon <Kit.Beynon@caa.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 1 Sept 2021 at 12:12
Subject: CAA FOI Internal Review Acknowledgement
To: bpawatch@gmail.com <bpawatch@gmail.com>

Dear Mr Canard,

Please find attached formal confirmation of the internal review of your FOI request made to the CAA.

Kind regards,

Kit Beynon

Kit Beynon
Head of Analysis & Insights



From: Kit Beynon <Kit.Beynon@caa.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 14 Sept 2021 at 10:18
Subject: CAA FOI Internal Review Decision
To: bpawatch@gmail.com <bpawatch@gmail.com>

Good morning Mr Canard,

Please see attached the decision letter relating to the appeal of FOI0005357,

Kind regards,

Kit Beynon

Kit Beynon
Head of Analysis & Insights

Consumers & Markets Group
Civil Aviation Authority




CONCLUSIONS

Questioned about the due processes to which CAP 660 v5 should have been subjected, CAA Legal Director Kate Staples assured us that her legal department had reviewed CAP 660. 

If this were so, then the CAA's legal department permitted the publication of a code of practice that failed to comply with various laws, including The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and, moreover, facilitated BPA evasion of HSE oversight and regulation.

Asked to prove her assertion, Ms Staples passed the matter over to the CAA's data protection guard dogs, who then cited legal privilege and "public interest" to fob BPA Watch off.

It would appear that the CAA had forgotten its response to that earlier FOI request in February 2020. As the old maxim goes, liars need long memories. 

Small wonder that Transport Minister Grant Shapps is setting up an external complaints review body to handle the growing anger within and without the aviation industry about the CAA quango, which is widely seen as totally out of control.

However, the CAA has indicated that Mr Shapps' Department of Transport was consulted about CAP 660 v5, suggesting that while the CAA and the BPA concocted CAP 660 v5, the CAA's ministerial masters approved it.

 

WILL BPA OFFICIALS FACE CHARGES?

In the CAA-BPA Exposition, revised several times since 1996, BPA Ltd trading as British Skydiving makes the extraordinary and false claim that contravention of the British Skydiving Operations Manual is a breach of legal requirements.

However, a recently disclosed professional 49-page report exposes BPA Ltd malpractice and lawbreaking over several decades. You can request a copy of this report by clicking on this link, as well as a copy of the CAA-BPA Exposition.

Should BPA Ltd directors and members of the BPA Ltd Council of Governors past and present who served as fronts for the firm's ghost directorate be seeking legal advice about statutes of limitations relating to this lawbreaking?

BPA Ltd offences include wilful evasion of Health and Safety Executive scrutiny and regulation, as the following extract from the report's conclusions shows.







 


IS TONY BUTLER A GHOST DIRECTOR OF CAA GENERAL AVIATION DIVISION?

It should be noted that CAA legal counsel Kate Staples completed tertiary education, unless she paid someone to sit her exams for her.

CAA Safety Director Rob Bishton probably obtained enough A Levels to blag his way onto the pilot-training programme of the first of the several bucketshop airlines that employed him before he was stopped from endangering planeloads of Ibiza-bound pillsheads and African peasants and given desk jobs.

After being marched out of EasyJet's offices between two security men, he spent some time in Africa before seeking refuge in quangoland.

However, Staples and Bishton are equally thick, proving that paper qualifications are not proof of intellectual functionality.

 As for Phillip Clark, 'Business Manager' and spokesman for Bishton and CEO Richard Moriarty, he says and writes what he is told to write. Because we all know what happens to CAA officials who do not toe the line. But he seems just as thick. 

And they all seem to believe that readers will take their assertions at face value.


From: BPA Watch <bpawatch@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 23 May 2021 at 09:33
Subject: Re: CAA members
To: Kate Staples <Kate.Staples@caa.co.uk>

Dear Kate Staples,

If Tony Butler is not influencing George Duncan and Rob Bishton, then the CAA is in control of Butler and his monopoly. In other words, the CAA is responsible for BPA/BS law-breaking and evasion. As well as all of the deaths and life-changing injuries occurring on the BPA-BS watch. But as Mr Bishton told us, all of the current CAA directors inherited the situation as codified in the CAA-BPA Exposition, In others, none of you is to blame for any of this, right? "Not us, guv!". We'd love to see you arguing that position in front of a judicial review.

Sincerely,

Don Canard.

On Tue, 18 May 2021 at 10:15, Kate Staples <Kate.Staples@caa.co.uk> wrote:

Dear Mr Canard

My colleague Philip Clarke has shared with me your email of 14 May 2021. In that email you wrote:

I  hope this finds you well. A new report in the possession of the Parachute Training Organisation Association Ltd –– which is suing your regulator BPA Ltd trading as British Skydiving –– asks if BPA Ltd COO Tony Butler is a ghost director of the Civil Aviation Authority. Given the obvious and well-documented influence of Mr Butler on CAA executive decisions in relation to parachuting, do your bosses Messrs Moriarty and Bishton agree with this thesis? Would this explain their unquestioning defence of Mr Butler and the monopoly over which he presides with the equally well documented support of the CAA?

The CAA website provides details of the membership of the CAA: CAA board and staff | UK Civil Aviation Authority. Non-executive members, including the Chair, are appointed by the Secretary of State for Transport. The Chief Executive is appointed by the Chair, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State, and other executive members are appointed by the Chief Executive with the approval of a non-executive member.

As you will see from the above, Mr Butler is not a member of the CAA. Nor is Mr Butler a ghost director of the CAA. Moreover, he does not and cannot wield the sort of influence that you describe in your email.

Given that the position is absolutely clear the CAA will not respond to any further correspondence of this nature.

Yours sincerely

Kate Staples
General Counsel and Secretary to the Civil Aviation Authority

Tel: 0330 138 3053

 

My pronouns are: she/her

 


 

From: BPA Watch <bpawatch@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 14 May 2021 at 13:35
Subject: CAA Ghost Directors
To: Clarke Philip <Philip.Clarke@caa.co.uk>
Cc: <richard.moriarty@caa.co.uk>, Rob Bishton <Rob.Bishton@caa.co.uk>

Dear Mr Clarke,

I  hope this finds you well. A new report in the possession of the Parachute Training Organisation Association Ltd –– which is suing your regulator BPA Ltd trading as British Skydiving –– asks if BPA Ltd COO Tony Butler is a ghost director of the Civil Aviation Authority. Given the obvious and well-documented influence of Mr Butler on CAA executive decisions in relation to parachuting, do your bosses Messrs Moriarty and Bishton agree with this thesis? Would this explain their unquestioning defence of Mr Butler and the monopoly over which he presides with the equally well documented support of the CAA?

Regards,

Don Canard





CAA STICKS FOOT IN MOUTH - AGAIN

This email exchange with the CAA prompts us to wonder what kind of criteria the CAA applies when deciding if a body like "British Parachute Association Limited, trading as British Skydiving, meets the requirements to hold the approval that has been granted to it.".

From: Philip Clarke <Philip.Clarke@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2021 at 17:25
Subject: FW: Tony Butler and the HSE
To: bpawatch@gmail.com <bpawatch@gmail.com>

Dear Mr Canard

I am writing in response to your email of 29 March 2021 to Richard Moriarty and Rob Bishton, in which you sought the CAA’s view on comments made by Tony Butler of British Skydiving (the trading name of British Parachute Association Ltd) in relation to the Health and Safety Executive.

It is not appropriate for the CAA to comment on statements made by another party, even where that party holds an approval granted by the CAA. The CAA is, and continues to be, satisfied that British Parachute Association Limited, trading as British Skydiving, meets the requirements to hold the approval that has been granted to it.

Kind regards

Philip Clarke (he/him)

Business Manager to the Chair and Chief Executive

At the CAA we respect agile working so, while it suits me to send this now, please only respond to this email inside your normal working hours.

Follow us on Twitter: @UK_CAA

Please consider the environment. Think before printing this email.    


From: BPA Watch <bpawatch@gmail.com>

Sent: Monday, March 29, 2021 6:21:49 AM
To: Richard Moriarty <Richard.Moriarty@xxxxxxx>; Rob Bishton <Rob.Bishton@xxxxxxx.>
Subject: Tony Butler and the HSE

Dear Sirs,

In a letter dated 8.2.2021 to the Parachute Training Organisation Association, your delegated parachuting regulator Tony Butler of the British Parachute Association aka British Skydiving openly expressed in writing for the first time his well-known aversion to the Health and Safety Executive and its regulations.

Mr Butler wrote: "If British Skydiving did not exist, either the CAA would need to take on the role and reproduce what the Association does, at a far higher cost, or there is a danger the HSE would likely carry out the role.".

As, respectively, CEO and Safety Officer of the CAA, would one or both of you give BPA Watch a comment on the record about Mr Butler's extraordinary statement? Do you condone or agree with this hostility to HSE regulations?

We can supply a copy of Mr Butler's letter if necessary.

Regards,

Don Canard for BPA Watch



BPA STABS CAA IN BACK

For years, the Civil Aviation Authority has denied aiding and abetting the transformation of the British Parachuting Association into a commercial monopoly. No good turn goes unpunished, as the CAA and its slippery directors are about to learn. 

Facing a multi-million pound lawsuit involving insurance-related malfeasance facilitated by BPA's CAA-sponsored monopoly, the BPA has taken the unexpected defensive measure of publishing the Exposition through which the CAA delegated regulatory oversight to the BPA, trading as British Skydiving. 

Both the CAA and its parachuting regulator had tenaciously refused to disclose the Exposition in its various forms since 1996. A BPA insider said: "Our management, well, Tony Butler to be more precise, thinks the BPA can avoid civil or even criminal prosecution under anti-monopoly laws by, basically, blaming the CAA for turning the BPA into a monopoly. We call him Teflon Tony. He always finds a fall guy and now it's the CAA itself.".  

A few days before the BPA's publication of the CAA-BPA Exposition, senior CAA executive director Rob Bishton wrote to BPA Watch: "Executives of the CAA represent the CAA position and that which reflects government policy. I assure you that you will receive a reply in due course and after due consideration, given much of what is being referred to pre-dates those of us in office at this time.". 

Was Bishton attempting to exculpate the current CAA directorate for the numerous transgressions of various laws, regulations and guidelines by the authors of the Exposition? Will ministers and parliamentarians agree with his express view that the doubtful legality of this contract and its blatant codification of the monopoly enjoyed by the BPA "reflects government policy". We shall see about that.

From the 2020 Edition of the CAA-BPA Exposition

Originally set up in the early 1960s as a not-for-profit amateur sporting association with the aim of enabling skydivers to obtain cheaper insurance, BPA Ltd has been a commercial enterprise for decades and, as such, was not a fit and proper body to act as a government regulator. The original CAA-BPA Exposition of 1996 was overseen by CAA official Major Tom Oxley. Oxley was also a long-serving BPA Council member but nobody questioned the obvious conflict of interest.

Oxley's successor George Duncan has long been perceived as Tony Butler's poodle, an obedient quangocrat who approves anything Butler puts in front of him on behalf of the BPA. 

Although CAA CEO Richard Moriarty did not join the CAA until 2016, Rob Bishton had been at the CAA for some ten months the time the CAA-BPA Exposition was updated in November 2014. However, this is not really the issue. The issue is that neither Moriarty nor Bishton acted to curb the abuses of power by the BPA. 

On the contrary, Bishton failed as Safety and Airspace Director to follow Oversight and Compliance Manager Jim Frampton's recommendations that CAP 660, co-authored by the BPA and the CAA, be rendered more compliant with Health and Safety laws and regulations. Instead, Bishton permitted the BPA to use the 2020 revision of CAP 660 to extend and consolidate its monopoly over parachuting. CAA insiders allege that Frampton suffered constructive dismissal by Bishton and his mentor Moriarty for trying to do his job. 

The 2020 Edition of the CAA-BPA Exposition was signed off by CAA official Hannah Foskett who, like her colleague George Duncan, has been accused by non-BPA parachuting organisations of obstructive interference in their affairs on behalf of the BPA by withholding the parachuting approvals and permissions that the CAA is obliged by law –– in the form of the Air Navigation Order –– to grant to any person or persons whose competence is not in question. 

In fairness to middle-ranking CAA officials like Duncan and Foskett, the CAA-BPA Exposition obliges them to do as Tony Butler and the BPA tells them, just as senior executive directors like Moriarty and Bishton have to follow BPA orders. The Exposition not only gives the BPA regulatory oversight but effectively renders the CAA subordinate to the BPA. With this in mind, is it surprising that Tony Butler and his cronies think they can throw the CAA under the bus to avoid civil prosecution by the PTO Association for operating an illegal monopoly?  

Don Canard


 






 

 


HSE EXEMPTS BPA FROM H&S LAW?

BPA exempted from the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974? Are HSE Memoranda of Understanding a legal paradox or simp...