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Written question asked by Gordon Marsden (Labour) on Monday, 15 December 2014, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 18 December 2014 (named day). It was answered by Robert Goodwill (Conservative) on Thursday, 18 December 2014 on behalf of the Department for Transport.

NATS

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions he has had with representatives of (a) National Air Traffic Services (NATS) and (b) the Civil Aviation Authority about the effectiveness of IT systems used by NATS following the operational difficulties experienced on 7 December 2013.

Answer

Both the Secretary of State and I have met NATS and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) on a number of occasions in the past year. During some of these meetings, we have emphasised the vital importance of NATS in providing an effective and reliable service to the aviation industry. We have also stressed the need for NATS to improve the reliability of its systems. We were briefed by NATS on the telecoms failure in December 2013 at Swanwick, and what it is doing to implement the lessons learned. The Secretary of State has also been briefed by the CEOs of NATS and CAA about the technical failure at NATS of 12 December 2014.

Ministers and officials regularly discuss the implementation of the Future Airspace Strategy with the CAA and NATS. This Strategy is the core programme for improving the efficiency of the UK airspace network.

Officials from the Department have attended a wide range of meetings with the CAA and NATS in the last year but none of these meetings have been specifically about NATS’s IT systems.

NATS typically invests £140m per annum on capital investment in operational IT systems.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
218855
Session
2014-15
Grouped for answer
Yes
Subjects
ICT NATS
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk