Article 14 Guarantee of compliance with competence standards
1 In order to ensure the levels of competence indispensable for air traffic controllers in order for them to perform their work to high safety standards, the Member States shall ensure that national supervisory authorities supervise and monitor their training.
Their tasks shall include:
(a) the issuing and revocation of licences, ratings and endorsements for which the relevant training and assessment was completed under the area of responsibility of the national supervisory authority;
(b) the maintenance and suspension of ratings and endorsements, the privileges of which are exercised under the responsibility of the national supervisory authority;
(c) the certification of training providers;
(d) the approval of training courses, unit training plans and unit competence schemes;
(e) the approval of competence examiners or competence assessors;
(f) the monitoring and auditing of training systems;
(g) the establishment of appropriate appeal and notification mechanisms.
2 National supervisory authorities shall provide appropriate information and mutual assistance to the national supervisory authorities of other Member States so as to ensure the effective application of this Directive, particularly in cases involving the free movement of air traffic controllers within the Community.
3 The national supervisory authorities shall ensure that a data base is maintained listing the competencies of all licence holders under their responsibility and the validity dates of their endorsements. To this end, operational units within air navigation service providers shall keep records of the hours effectively worked in the sectors, group of sectors or in the working positions for every licence holder working in the unit and shall provide this data to the national supervisory authorities on request.
4 The national supervisory authorities shall approve the licence holders who are entitled to act as competence examiners or competence assessors for unit and continuation training. Approval shall be valid for a renewable period of three years.
5 The national supervisory authorities shall audit the training providers on a regular basis with a view to guaranteeing effective compliance with the standards laid down in this Directive.
In addition to the regular audit, the national supervisory authorities may make on-the-spot visits to check the effective implementation of this Directive and compliance with the standards contained therein.
6 National supervisory authorities may decide to delegate in full or in part the auditing functions and inspections mentioned in paragraph 5 of this Article to recognised organisations in accordance with Article 3 of Regulation (EC) No 550/2004.
7 Member States shall submit to the Commission a report on the application of this Directive by 17 May 2011 May and at three-yearly intervals thereafter.