New-look Airport… but overtime soars
Saturday 3rd July 2010, 3:00PM BST.
The new Airport control tower
SERIOUS concerns have been raised about cost efficiencies at the Airport only weeks after the States announced drastic spending cuts across all departments.
The JEP can reveal that the Island’s 24 air traffic controllers are currently being paid overtime, believed to be £500 a day, to train on a new piece of operating software – software which has failed recent acceptance tests.
That failure is one of the reasons the switchover to the new £12 million air traffic control centre – officially opened this week by the Earl and Countess of Wessex – has been delayed until the end of November.
And one member of staff is being paid an air traffic controller’s salary, believed to be £68,000 a year, despite having failed both of the exams necessary to work as an air traffic controller in Jersey. He is currently working behind a desk.
Deputy Mike Higgins has asked Economic Development Minister Alan Maclean for an explanation but said he did not get ‘satisfactory answers’.
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This is another appaling waste of taxpayers money!
When will the COM become accountable for the departments which they are responsible for, or are they just riding the bandwagon for thier own gains!
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£68,000 a year….£500 a day overtime…!!!not even a police constable gets this!!!
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The chief executive at the airport must have a responsibility regarding spending the taxpayers money, as a civil servant.
Clearly if the JEP is correct he is paying a person who has failed exams, a higher grade to which that person is entitled just for openers.
The Minister needs facts and figures and the help of the Comptroller and auditor general, to see the clear facts of the case.
If the chief executive is not doing his job properly ( as per the appalling reports regarding the management of the hospital ) then it becomes the minister’s job to sack him.
There are too many managers, too many, weather forcasters, and 24 air traffic controllers seems an awful lot. What else is inefficient and unnecessary at the airport.
Another States department facing a yellow card when it probably should be red.
Backbone CoM, not excuses! or are you all just going to take away kids milk, and make their parents pay more to feed their children by upping GST?
Davey.
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How many public sector critics even batted an eyelid when those taking gambles with other people’s savings and investments were lining their pockets on a daily basis?
No doubt then (and it’s probably still going on) it was “Oh they are bettering themselves, that’s ok”.
Not that the above revelation is in any way excusable. Just where were all the watchdogs sleeping before?
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Dont know what a police constable has too do with this article , but this is a joke , in any line of work ,your pay must go on your qualifications , so please the person paying this person please e-mail me i will serve them breakfast,lunch and dinner for 50k
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Come on Truthseeker – you must have an opinion in this! Or maybe not as it hasn;t anything to do with the Finance industry…
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How can anyone justify Twelve thousand pounds a day on this nonsense…whoever sanctioned this should be sacked now.
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Jersey airport has far too many ‘managers’, full of their own importance, or one could say ‘too many chiefs, not enough indians’.
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This is a joke! another waste of tax payers money.
The person who failed their exams should be removed from the post.
And how much overtime!!!!!
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Truthseeker – and you are an expert on the availability of ATCs are you? Armchair politics…great stuff
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Nearly every year in the last 7 or 8 the airport has had a makeover.
If they had got it right the first time,instead of dithering this would have been unnecessary.
Obviously they have money to burn.
Have they never heard of “if it ain,t broke don,t fix it
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Sounds like truthseeker is an accountant who added 2+2 and got 5, it would only be £12000/day if all 24 controllers (which there isn’t) were in on over time every day (which they can’t be).
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#3 – The guys to blame are from NATS – not civil servants; all on lucrative contracts!
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I read the article as £500 per day overtime payments being paid not to one ATC but collectively.
That works out as £21 per ATC per day.
Depending on how long it takes that may not be so bad for a group with that amount of responsibility to upgrade to new operating software.
Would have been a better article if the projected final amount were disclosed instead of headline grabbing.
£68,000 a year for a failure ? bet he’s a union member.
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Bella – Your point about money to burn. Yes they have and it is our money. That is why we are charged such exorbitant rates, from landing fees to parking charges to use OUR airport. Like the post office and JT this is another example of a States department that is totally out of Government control and is now setting its own agenda. Instead of the States appointing a Manager to simply manage the airport they have allowed Civil Servants to appoint a board of very highly paid executives seeking to carve out a new empire built on public money.
And like our Post office and JT they have spent so much energy and money chasing their own business dreams that they have failed to properly run the basic service they were charged manage and worse have sacrificed this service to fund their glamorous business plans.
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The point everyone is missing is whether its 500 or 50000.. If i am being trained by my employer to do MY job so that i can do it to the best of my ability, possibly avoiding disasters and loss of life then I would not expect overtime to be paid.
In fact I have been sent on courses overseas, away from my wife and children and lived in some stinking rat holes of hotels to be trained and only got core pay.
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If you work in the private sector you don’t get paid overtime for implementing a new system- it’s called part of your job
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Anon @ NO 13 comment, can u enlighten us more as it seems you know more than the rest of us and who are NATS
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15
Taking us for fools they are.
Time there was some accountability from those that spend wily-nilly on others money on anything that takes their fancy!
What next-a new harbour?
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‘Sounds like truthseeker is an accountant who added 2+2 and got 5, it would only be £12000/day if all 24 controllers (which there isn’t) were in on over time every day (which they can’t be).’
‘I read the article as £500 per day overtime payments being paid not to one ATC but collectively.
That works out as £21 per ATC per day’
£21 would just about cover light refreshments.
£500 each would seem more likely.
Someone tell us, pleeeze!
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cuts across all departments but ministers get a 2% wage increase !!
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R B Bougourd #20
You appear to have made the same mistake 2+2=5
£64,000 pa, “roughly” works out at £40 per hr.
(£64.000 /12months/4 weeks/34hrs)
If 25% of ATCs are training for 2 hrs per evening that equals
£40 x 2hrs x 6ATCs = £480 (+ £20 to cover light refreshments)
I am not privy to the facts but that seems reasonable, and a fair price to pay to train these essential personnel.
As I said before this looks like sensationalist reporting
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#18 NATS are an air traffic control company. If they’re involved then they must have the contract for looking after Jersey airspace. Hopefully Anon can enlighten you on the rest of it.
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@22 Try reading the Hansard of the States Assembly (22nd June), that should make it clear and raises some more pertinent questions that the JEP didn’t publish.
@23 NATS do not have the contract for Jersey Airspace merely a contract for providing their so called expertise in getting the department certified as is now required for operating in European airspace. Of course who knows what is in the minds of the Airport Management for the future….
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I would agree that truthseeker has probably got it wrong in assuming that £12000 is being spent per day.
As Bob (12) points out, they won’t all be training at the same time.
To me £500 overtime to come in for a day’s training on a day off (as they work shifts) would seem more plausible than one twenty-fourth of £500. I won’t calculate it exactly, in case I arrive at 2+2=5, but as it’s in the region of £20 plus a cup of tea it doesn’t sound like enough to spark a media storm. Certainly not worth getting out of bed for on a rest day.
The article doesn’t go into detail so I don’t know if it involves one day’s training or two hours in the evening. PJG and I are both guessing here.
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#24 Thanks for that Bob, I didn’t get why they would be involved unless they were looking after the airspace itself but what you’ve said makes sense.
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On recent visit to Jersey, Airport Arrivals/Departures at froont of building a mess. Why alocate so much space for car parking incl.Hire Cars, Surely H cars could be brought in from the West of Island ‘compound’ when required. Private sector workers work longer hours, less perks, definitely no overtime. Civil Servants need a little experience in the private sector to see the difference.
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It is £500 (approx) per day per fully qualified controller, a FULL days work on what would normally be a day off. Obviously, only a couple of controllers can do overtime (on day off)on any one day, as the others are on shift. The overtime is NOT every single day! The new tower is NOT a “makeover” it is an operational requirement, basically the old tower is too close to the runway, originally it wasn’t, but as safety measures have become more stringent, it is now!
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As has been pointed out The Truthseeker is not in fact an accountant, Thank God…..but always outraged by public waste of money..and this pales compared with the bespoke computer system commissioned by the States and presumably by a computer savvy employee….and you know what ..?it never worked and was abandoned…but Hey never mind it only cost ….£11 Million….!! you don’t need to be an accountant to know that these situations are just B****cks
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The airport appears to be swimming in staff. Why an earth in this day and age with numerous internet weather sites do we need a met office for instance. Goodness only knows what their collective salaries must be.
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@ Beatrice, what on earth has the amount of parking got to do with the control tower? On many occasions the car park is full so it is needed, not all the hire cars are kept there and some of the companies do bus there customers away from the airport…..
@ cJ. The Met office come under planning and environment and aren’t employed by the airport. They are , however, contracted to provide met services to Air traffic which is essential for the safe operation of aircraft and there’s no substitute for local experience when it comes to the weather.
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No. 13 Do you mean ‘Non-identifible airport tradesmen’. Then you are correct.
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In reply to truthseeker, as I understand the new tower DID cost £11m to build however, the revenue earned for the services provided means that in 3 years this facility should have paid for itself.
It frustrates me that the airport seems to take a lot of abuse on these forums when in fact it is more likely to make money that certain other areas within the states.
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33.If you are going to know the facts..read the flippin post…it was a computer system…not the tower….. Crikey…Mork to Orson…come in Orson.
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