SSP responsibilities: State Safety Programme training

Elements and components

So let’s look at the State Safety Programme in more detail.

ICAO has written guidelines (SARPs) to set-up and maintain a State Safety Programme.

These guidelines are divided up into 4 Components and 15 elements.

Risk Management and Safety Assurance are operations focused.

Policy and Promotion are policy focused.

1. State Safety Policy

What is the State Safety Policy?

The policy says how Canada intends to manage safety within our aviation system. It includes the responsibilities of different government departments and a description of the safety objectives that we plan to achieve with our SSP.

Canada has already developed policies that are suitable to the operations and the environment of our civil aviation partners. These policies will continue to evolve to respond to future developments in aviation safety.

2. State Safety Risk Management

What is Risk Management?

The risk management component of SSP describes a collaboration between government and industry partners to ensure that we have a proactive approach to looking for hazards to aviation operations using SMS. TCCA will have an agreement with the industry groups on setting up aviation safety management practices

Transport Canada continues with inspections to make sure that safety targets are being met and will prioritize surveillance activities where necessary.

3. State Safety Assurance

What is State Safety Assurance?

Safety assurance is actions taken by a service provider or government to give confidence that a service is operating at an acceptable level of safety.

Within SSP, the safety assurance component describes a collaboration between government and industry groups. The objective is to make sure that operations are being continuously monitored; best practices and data are being shared.

Transport Canada currently has responsibilities to make sure that industry partners are meeting their safety objectives. Transport Canada assures safety through inspections to make sure that safety targets are being met and will prioritize inspections where necessary.

4. State Safety Promotion

What is State Safety Promotion?

Safety promotion is an essential part of building a positive safety culture in aviation.

Transport Canada already has safety promotion responsibilities. SSP requires different member countries to set up different ways of communicating safety information to all partners who are involved in civil aviation safety.

Transport Canada could communicate through social media, brochures, safety plans or training. The purpose of promotion is to improve awareness amongst partners so that policies stay effective.

Safety Promotion is continuous engagement with our SSP partners which allows us to understand each other’s responsibilities and foster a positive safety culture.