Tania Mathias – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tania Mathias on 2016-02-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions he has had with his European counterparts about EU proposals to block public access to Mandatory Occurrence Reports; and what assessment he has made of the potential effect of those proposals on public confidence in aircraft safety.

Mr Robert Goodwill

The reporting, analysis and follow-up of occurrences in civil aviation is governed by Regulation (EU) No 376/2014 which was adopted on 3 April 2014 and became applicable on 15 November 2015.

The open reporting of safety occurrences is vital to help ensure that significant issues can be identified and addressed before they lead to an accident. To foster open reporting the Regulation aims to create a just culture in which occurrences can be reported without fear of any detriment. To support the just culture the Regulation requires that reports be given an appropriate level of confidentiality and that information derived from occurrence reports shall be used only for safety related purposes. However, the Regulation does permit information to be released on request to interested parties that have a genuine safety related need for the information.

The Regulation also recognises the need to keep the public informed on aviation safety matters. It requires Member States to publish, at least annually, a safety review setting out the type of occurrences and safety-related information that has been reported, any trends that have been identified and any corrective action taken. In addition, the European Aviation Safety Agency is required to include information about the analysis of occurrence reports in its annual safety review.