111. You mentioned the issue of trained operators there, am I right in saying that given there is a lot of financial pressure on NATS it is true, is it not, that therefore you are shortening job training and assuming a higher level of pass rate for trained operators in order to hit your targets for the number of operators you have. Firstly, can you confirm that is true? Do you think there is a question mark over quality and, therefore, safety?
(Mr Everitt) We have an independent regulator who will make sure we reach the right quality level. We have not shortened training. We have certainly set challenges to improve the pass rate, the pass rate is wholly unacceptable.
112. You have not shortened job training? I understood from the Report that that was the case, from the NAO brief that members were given. Maybe we could have a note on that as a point of fact.4
(Mr Everitt) The training has to satisfy the CAA.
113. 3.12, page 35 "shorten the period of on-the- job training". Four lines from the bottom, the period of on-the-job training has been shortened.
(Mr Everitt) We, "hope to achieve significantly higher pass rates by more selective recruitment and effective training and shorten the period of on-the-job training". It is a hope. It is an aspiration. This is what happened in the airlines over many years.
114. Will you be spending more or less on training?
(Mr Everitt) We currently spend 23 to 25 million a year on training. I want to get more out of that money, like more people where I need them.
115. May I ask, this is a tricky issue, on the Treasury rules that have been mentioned, there was this issue about where the public sector comparator is, obviously the public sector comparator presumably was the previous NATS, because we had something in operation. The question was, how do we get more money into the system for new investment, 1 billion as promised for PPP-we have not yet seen that-am I right to say if we had done that through a bond issue that that would not have counted towards PSBR according to the OECD definition in the Maastricht Treaty? If that is the case is it just Britain and the British Treasury who have
perverse definitions that stop us putting bond money into the public sector?
(Ms Lomax) You take me outside my field of expertise.
(Mr Glicksman) I am not familiar with the Maastricht Treaty.
116. You have not read the Maastricht Treaty! You must be conversant with the conventions on public sector borrowing requirements in our European partners, which happens to be the one in the Maastricht Treaty, which is that bond financing in this public service would not count. That is correct, is it not?
(Mr Glicksman) I think we comply with the international conventions on the classification of expenditure.
117. I am sure you do.
(Mr Glicksman) I think the question is, what are the figures that are controlled rather than whether they are in the public sector or not?
118. Is it not the case in terms of definitions and how we apply them that we have allowed a bit more flexibility in the terms of the Channel Tunnel rail link and United Kingdom regional airports?
(Ms Lomax) We have in the case of the regional airports, that is correct, but not on anything like the scale that would be necessary for NATS purposes.
119. May I ask, there are clearly difficult financial conditions, there is very high gearing, as has been made clear by Mr Williams, we also have a situation of massive technological uncertainty in the market by taking big risks on that, if it is necessary to offer greater financial assistance would we be asking the government for more money to put in if we had a situation akin to the West Coast Mainline Project? We do not know what the future holds, in the even that the market will not deliver the money I presume we will ask Treasury to bail out the system, is that right?
(Mr Everitt) The first big tranche of capital investment, technically the most challenging one, has been Swanwick, which we bought in in January. Our objective is to renew most of the system over the next ten years. We think we can do that within the sort of figures that we have just been talking about. Part of our job as a management team is to manage that risk effectively.
120. I know. If things end up costing more and the revenue is less than business assumptions and the private sector will not stump up the money what are you going to do, are you prepared for there to be some retrenchment of services or a question mark over some operational investment that underpins safety?
(Mr Everitt) You are asking me to deal with a hypothetical. The responsibility that we have as a management team and as a board is to manage our way through these technically demanding projects, and they are technically demanding. The biggest one we have now brought home, which is Swanwick.
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4 Ev 28.