While the FAA’s shift to a compliance-oriented approach rather than enforcement stance has generally received positive reviews, a government watchdog recommends that the agency step up oversight of the the compliance program and better evaluate its effectiveness.

In a recent report to Congress, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said the FAA lacks controls to ensure the program works as intended. The FAA has not appointed a central authority to serve as a lead oversight of the program agency-wide, the GAO said, nor does any office regularly collect and monitor data on the program’s use.

“FAA lacks information to help it holistically manage the day-to-day functioning of its compliance and enforcement efforts, as well as the means to communicate information to Congress and industry. Second, FAA has not evaluated this new approach to enforcement to determine whether the approach has met its goals,” the GAO said. “Without such an evaluation, FAA cannot know the true effect of the compliance program."

The agency implemented the compliance program in 2015, moving from an enforcement-oriented philosophy to one that strives to resolve unintentional compliance issues through education and collaborative remediation. The FAA still will use enforcement tools when such efforts fail, or the case of intentional non-compliance.

The greatest effect of the approach has centered on the number of administrative actions the agency has taken. Legal actions have declined slightly, but since 2012 the number of administrative actions has dropped from 6,000 annually to 2,000 per year now. The greatest declines began after compliance enforcement took effect, the GAO said.

“FAA views the compliance program as a necessary step to evolve the oversight of aviation safety,” the GAO noted, adding that agency officials have credited the program with helping to contribute to safety improvements. The officials believe the program has given the agency a “wider view” into regulated entities because it encourages transparency and information sharing. Further, FAA officials said the program has provided them with an “expanded ability to make aviation safer,” the GAO added.

Headquarters and officials in field offices share that view, and local FAA officials claim it has improved relationships. They provided examples where entities no longer felt a need to hide things. The GAO said field officers reported that “regulated entities are more willing to work with FAA to focus on the root cause of a violation or event and work to address it.”

Similarly, industry associations gave feedback expressing the belief the program has improved compliance safety and transparency. Further, they said the program allows the FAA to used tailored approaches to address issues.

However, the watchdog expressed concern that no specific office or entity is tasked with overseeing the program and believes the FAA should put such oversight in place. “Based on our review of FAA documents and our prior review of FAA’s enforcement policy, FAA’s oversight used to be more centralized in the Enforcement Division, where all administrative and legal enforcement actions were tracked in a single database,” the agency said. “Now, as FAA emphasizes compliance actions over enforcement actions, tracking of actions is less centralized and occurs more in individual program offices.”

Without such centralized oversight, “no one is looking across program offices to identify or share any best practices or lessons learned,” the GAO said. “Individual offices have information that might benefit other offices. Further, officials from one FAA field office told us that the compliance program could be improved by better sharing information on its use across the agency.”

The watchdog added that FAA should collect and analyze data to monitor use across all program offices and evaluate the program to ensure its effectiveness.