You have recently been appointed as the Deputy Director of the Air
Navigation Bureau at ICAO Headquarters in Montreal.  The Director
sends for you and says:

"As you know, the primary aim of ICAO is to ensure the safety of
international civil aviation, and it does this through the standards
and recommended practices (SARPS) in the various Annexes.  To assist
ICAO in checking the degree of compliance by Contracting States with
the SARPS, the ICAO Universal Safety Oversight Programme was launched
on 1 January 1999.

Despite the success to date, there are some problems with the
programme, not the least of which is that the audits carried out on
major States, which to date have been confined to Annexes 1, 6 and 8,
have revealed several differences between State practices and the
SARPS. While this may at first sight appear to be an embarrassing
situation, the reality is that in no instance have these differences
had a bearing on safety.  On the contrary, they have highlighted the
fact that the Annexes may not have kept up with international ‘best
practice’.

I want you to prepare a draft working paper for me to present to the
Air Navigation Commission, arguing the case that, for all the value
derived from the audits, ICAO should consider widening the aims of the
oversight programme to:
•	assist smaller States to raise their own standards and help them to
conform to the SARPS; and
•	use the results of the audits on the major States as the basis for
developing a work programme for updating the 3 Annexes.

Some of the points you should consider are:
•	requirements for financing the necessary assistance to the smaller
States;
•	whether the Technical Cooperation Bureau could be involved through
the provision of experts;
•	potential difficulties faced by the smaller States if the SARPS were
to reflect more accurately the standards in the major States; and
•	where States establish national regulations that are in excess of
the relevant SARPS, does such a departure require notification under
the terms of Article 38 to the Convention?”
 
3500 words Answer by the 22nd October

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Request for Question Clarification by omniscientbeing-ga on 24 Oct 2002 18:22 PDT

You stated in your Question you want an Answer by 10/22, although you
set the expiration (or allowed the default exp.) to b11/9.

Are you still insterested in an Answer?

Personally I am the opinion that big government rarely does anything
right. The best statagy is to issue guide lines, not rules then
evaluate the performance competively of the various units. Try to
figure out why some are more successful than others and share your new
thoeries in a news letter. Make it clear that the poorest performers
will get micro managed and that likely means some will be looking for
new jobs. Don't hastle the average and above performers and lavish
praise and perks on those resonsible for outstanding performance.
Outstanding means accomplishing the mission, not PR, or politically
correct. Pay attention to employee sugestions. There is an occassional
gem. Keep your eye on the important stuff and take the flack from
special interst groups instead of letting it effect the units.  Neil

It seems to be the case that a lot of larger organizational structures
want to downsize, in essence, make the smaller units more effective,
and less money spent on infrastructure to support the whole of the
units. This, in essence, makes the separate entities "compete" for
funds, but does the overall governing entity judge on use, size, or
what principle to determine allocation?

Before you can do all this report-writing and get into a serious
study, why not look at the successful stations, and try to determine
why they are effective, then see what can be done to improve less
functional site, or what can be done to "privatize" it so that it much
adhere to a standard minimum, but not be under direct support. If the
government entity becomes, not a bureaucaratic gumbo, but a training
and support resource, and that includes accident investigation and
training for minimum standards, then governance becomes one of
monitoring, and not support.