2.      In summary — what and how

2.1.      What we want to achieve — objectives

—         To maintain, update and develop, as necessary, the technical material for the implementation and measurement of the SKPI that will be applicable to the Safety Key Performance Area in RP3.

—         To maintain, update and develop, as necessary, the technical material for the implementation and measurement of the SPIs that will be applicable to the RP3 Safety Key Performance Area.

2.2.      How we want to achieve it — an overview

In 2016, at the request of the European Commission, EASA, supported by a working group of experts drawn from Member States’ national aviation authorites (NAAs) and industry, developed the RP3 SKPI WG Report, ‘Indicator Proposals for RP3’ for application in the Safety Key Performance Area (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Report’). The contents of this Report, together with inputs from other stakeholders, have been used by the European Commission in drafting the legislative proposal for RP3.

The supporting material follow the conclusions of the Report, as far as they covered the S(K)PIs as required by the performance scheme Regulation.

As a result, the Effectiveness of Safety Management SKPI, applied at ANSP level only, has been developed based on the CANSO Standard of Excellence (hereinafter referred to as ‘the SoE’) measurement tool. Although it has been adapted to meet the needs of the performance and charging scheme Regulation, modifications have been minimised, in order to deviate as little as possible from the CANSO SoE questionnaire. Nonetheless, some differences have been introduced. The main deviations with respect to the CANSO SoE are as follows:

—         Study areas 6, 8, 9, and 10 of the SoE have been removed, as there are no corresponding requirements in the SMS components required by Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/373[35];

—         Maturity level E (Optimised) is not used, because this level is intended to set international best practices. Achieving level E in every ANSP or across every study area is unrealistic, and therefore is not targeted;

—         Study area 18 has been added as an optional component to capture how the ANSP deals with safety interdependencies, and trade-offs, serving as a proxy of the system resilience of the organisation;

—         Study area 1, safety culture, has been completely redrafted to be fit for purpose.

In addition, the Report proposed the reduction of the number of SPIs. These proposed SPIs are separation minima infringements and runway incursions, and they shall be defined as rates normalised by the appropriate exposure data. They shall be defined in such way that their measurement will rely on the data that is collected under Regulation (EU) No 376/2014[36], which is stored in the European Central Repository. The technical material should define the processes to collect the information that is required to populate the SPIs.

The SPIs, to be measured at Member State, aerodrome or ANSP level, are defined in the performance scheme Regulation. The technical material sets out the definitions of the data to be reported and the collection methods. The indicators have been designed to use the European Central Repository, established under Regulation (EU) No 376/2014, as the source of occurrence data. Data from the Network Manager and the ANSPs are proposed as the source of exposure data.

2.3.      What are the expected benefits and drawbacks of this Supporting Material

SKPI — Effectiveness of safety management

It is expected that by aligning with the CANSO SoE, the efficiency of the performance scheme will be greatly improved. In addition, the CANSO SoE has been updated and improved during RP2, thus the proposed means of measuring the effectiveness of safety management reflects more recent experience and modern safety management approaches.

There is not complete alignment with the CANSO SoE, therefore some small additional work will be required for ANSPs in responding to questions on safety culture.

SPIs — The rate of runway incursions and separation minima infringements with a safety impact

In defining the European Central Repository as the data source, the reporting and calculation of these performance indicators involves minimal additional effort on the part of the ANSPs and national supervisory authorities (NSAs). All the occurrence reports required for the performance scheme Regulation are already reportable under Regulation (EU) No 376/2014. Some additional data fields are needed to efficiently identify the occurrences applicable to the scheme; however, these have been minimised.

In defining safety impact as those occurrences with a high severity RAT-Ground score (ANSP level) or a medium/high risk ERCS score (Member State level), the safety impact will be assessed using a methodology that is already or shortly to be in use by EASA stakeholders. ANSPs have been using the severity classification of the RAT methodology throughout RP2 and Member States will soon be required to risk-classify occurrences using the European Risk Classification Scheme (ERCS) as per Regulation (EU) No 376/2014.