Good evening, all,

As many of you will be aware, I have promised openness and transparency following my appointment and both publicly and within my teams, have shared details of the plan that I intend to follow for ATC Training moving forwards. On Tuesday of this week, Ben Wright chaired the first DSG meeting of both the year and his tenure and, during that meeting, I asked to present my findings on ATC Training across the division so far and my high-level, unordered plan for the future. I am pleased to say that the meeting enjoyed healthy discussion and debate and whilst some of the points we discussed warrant further discussion, I am pleased that there is general consensus on the vision moving forwards. 

I committed to sharing a version of the plan with you although with some redactions; as I say, elements of the plan require further discussion with the DSG and subsequently, I won't yet allude to those items that need to be discussed further. Those bits that I will allude to are outlined below:

Me and My Approach
In the presentation I gave on Tuesday, I talked about myself for those who haven't worked with me previously and I will share some of that with you now: I plan to be open, transparent and honest with everyone involved in ATC Training during my appointment, both within the DSG, to my staff and to consumers of our ATC Training services. Decision that I make will be in the best interests of the division and I will act with integrity throughout. Equally, I expect to receive the same from my colleagues at all levels - these values are incredibly important to me.

Certainly in these early days, I intend to over-communicate. I think it's important that, given we are one of the more in-demand departments within VATSIM UK - perhaps even the network - it's important that there is clear visibility of what we're doing to respond to the demand that's before us. In time, as Mr. Jennings and I settle into our roles, he will take responsibility for leading the TGs on a day-to-day basis, working with our TG leads to ensure smooth running of our training system and working with stakeholders across the division in support of this; whilst this happens, I will work more strategically to look at efficiency of process, harmony across ratings, GCAP compliance and other innovations we can make in training to improve life for our students.

I will take calculated risks during my tenure. I would far rather try something, see if it works and iterate towards improvements rather than endlessly hypothesise on changes that we might make. Whilst this may seem reckless, I'll only do this after consultation with the DSG and the relevant members of my staff in order to ensure that we don't unnecessarily disrupt the training process, but it's important that we try to react to the increasing demand for ATC Training alongside the increasing demand for ATC services in the UK's airspace - Kieran's 2023 summary shows the vast increase in traffic that we're seeing as a division and it's incumbent on me and my teams to ensure that we train controllers quickly, efficiently and effectively to accommodate these traffic levels.

Pain Areas
It is no secret that training delays are the biggest area of concern to the division, the division's leadership and the region and naturally, this will be a key focus for both me and Will over the coming months. However, alongside this, there are a plethora of areas in which I believe that we can improve ATC Training. Some of these are very quick to highlight and slow to realise, whilst others might need more detailed analysis with the promise of some 'quick wins'. The summary of those issues which I'm able to disclose thus far consists of:

• Occasional misalignment between training staff and examiners on an acceptable standard for trainees/candidates.
• Dependencies on manual processes for the administration of training, ranging from waiting lists to the administration of training itself.
• Disparate and inconsistent use of feedback to support the training process.
• Inconsistent provision of feedback to training groups in causes for exam failures.
• Significant delays to the transferring/visiting controller processes.

There are, of course, other issues, but those remain behind closed doors for now. I am sure that following further discussion with my colleagues on the DSG, I can discuss more of what I'm hoping to achieve, but given the freshness of the plan to the DSG themselves, it would be unfair for me to comment.

What am I doing about it?
I am pleased to be supported by a huge number of enthusiastic people who can support me in resolving these issues for the division. Will readily agreed to take on the role of ATC Training Manager and he and I have had a number of long conversations already about 'doing better'. We've settled on a number of stretch objectives for the department and we'll be working across the division to support the delivery of those. In the short term, in rough priority order, we plan to address the following issues:

• Mr. Jennings and I will work with each TG, then the TG's, examiners and DI's collaboratively, to ensure that we facilitate Business as Usual (BAU). Whilst BAU is very unexciting, it's important that we continue to support training and rating upgrades whilst we explore improvements that we might make.
• I will work closely with Kieran and our colleagues in Web Tech to ensure that the division will be compliant with GCAP come the 1st March 2024.
• I will work with our TG leads, DIs and examiners in order to ensure that we have clear syllabus across all ratings which ensures that a student completing their training in one TG has all of the expected skill and experience to start their training in the next TG.
• From this, I will clearly define examination criteria for each rating that are GCAP compliant and share this with the examiners and TG leads, ensuring consistency of standards across exams.
• This will then naturally cascade to the mentors within each TG, unifying our approach to training throughout the entire training process.
• As part of this, I'll be promoting stronger collaboration between TGs, my department and Pilot Training and our colleagues in Operations and Marketing to ensure that we provide the best possible training opportunities to controllers.

This is - genuinely - the tip of the iceberg, but it represents a lot of work for the entire department. From this work, we'll likely identify other objectives which, of course, I'll write about as they become transparent. I'm excited to be in post, I'm grateful to be supported by such a group of enthusiastic individuals and I'm looking forward to sharing a more detailed version of this plan with my staff in the coming days and weeks. Until then, if anyone has any questions, please feel free to get in touch via the Discord, e-mail or by submitting a ticket for the attention of the ATC Training department; bear in mind that those tickets are visible to a wide audience and so discretion is best achieved via e-mail.

All the best,
Adam