3. Cost recovery model

3.1 Outputs and business processes of the regulatory charging activities 

3.1.1 Activity outputs 

As described in Section 1.2.1, AMSA’s role is to deliver on seafarer and ship safety, and marine environmental protection through regulation, as well as provide search and rescue capability. The broad outputs and primary activities for all roles are itemised in Table 2, which also notes whether the output is subject to regulatory charging (cost recovery) or not.

Table 2: AMSA’s broad activity output listing 

Activity output	Primary activities	Regulatory charging?
Search and rescue activities and functions	Operating AMSA Response Centre, coordinating maritime and aviation search and rescue.  Providng a ground station and Mission Control Centre for the Cospas Sarsat distress beacon detection system.  Maintaining maritime distress and safety communications services.  Providing dedicated airborne search and rescue services.	No, funded by government budget appropriations
Navigational infrastructure	Providing and maintaining a national network of marine aids to navigation (AtoN) and related navigational systems and measures.  Intergovernmental and international engagement to shape and ensure appropriate maritime standards are in place (e.g. for Australia’s obligations under the SOLAS convention and for the provision of AtoN that align with international guidance from IALA).	Yes
Environmental marine protection	Managing the National Plan, including crisis preparedness to combat marine environmental emergencies (pollution incidents).  Regulating, monitoring, and coordinating maritime casualty management and emergency towage capability.  Conducting pollution prevention public awareness and education campaigns.	Yes
Seafarer and ship safety under Navigation Act 2012 and other Acts	Monitoring compliance with operational standards for ships in Australian waters, under the Act, to ensure their seaworthiness, safety and pollution prevention.  Participating in the development and implementation of national and international marine safety and environment protection standards.  Providing public access to ship safety and environment protection standards and policies.  Administering training standards for seafarers and coastal pilots.  Conducting safety public awareness and education campaigns.  Exercising occupational health and safety inspectorate functions.	Yes
Marine services under Navigation Act 2012 and ship registration under Shipping Registration Act 1981	Administering certificates of competency for seafarers and coastal pilots.  Conducting inspections, surveys, and audits requested by ship owners or their agents.  Administering Australia’s ship registration system.	Yes
Marine services under National System for domestic commercial vessels	Assessing applications and issuing approvals and certificates of operation, survey, and competency of near coastal seafarer qualifications.  Assessing applications and issuing approvals for network of accredited marine surveyors.  Assessing applications that request exemptions from the application of the National System, and equivalent means of competency.	Yes
Seafarer and ship safety under the National System for domestic commercial vessels	Monitoring compliance with standards for the domestic commercial vessel fleet,   Participating in the development and implementation of domestic marine safety and environment protection standards.  Conducting safety awareness and education campaigns for domestic commercial vessel industry.	No, funded by combination of government budget appropriations and jurisdiction contributions
Externally funded programs	Externally funded programs sponsored by various government departments for provision of specific maritime related services, predominantly in relation to search and rescue capabilities.	No, funded by various government departments

Operational targets of activity outputs are contained in the annual report and performance statements of AMSA’s, which describes the reportable measurements to achieve policy outcomes. A summary of regulatory charging activity non-financial performance measures is in Section 8. 

3.2.1 Business processes 

Levy-based activities 

Levy-based charging activities relate to the provision of statutory regulatory services to a group of individuals or organisations, as opposed to transactional business processes. These regulatory-based business processes are carried out as overall activities that aim to minimise the risks of shipping and pollution incidents and maximise safety of people involved. 

Business processes include provision and maintenance of aids to navigation sites, standard and policy development specifically related to our regulatory functions, managing the National Plan for maritime environmental emergencies, compliance audits, investigations and enforcement, and development and promulgation of educational and advisory material. 

Fee-based activities 

Driven largely by transactional business processes specifically performed for, or at the request of, or on the application of a particular individual or organisation. Fee-based regulatory charging activities support specific regulatory functions to which the fees relate. There is clear and distinct linkage of costs of the business processes to an individual or organisation. 

Generic business processes for AMSA’s fee-based activities include: 

• receipt, review, and decision on an application, including ongoing consultation with the applicant, 
• undertaking technical assessment, with a decision made by a delegate, and 
• processing and issuing a certificate, license, exemption, determination, or approval. 

In practice, administrative business procedures for the receipt, review and issue are broadly similar across fee-based charging activities. However, time and effort (and associated costs) for technical assessments and decisions vary between the types of outputs and on the complexity or nature of the application. 

3.2 Costs of regulatory charging activities 

AMSA applies an activity-based costing methodology to determine costs for activity outputs and regulatory charging activities, as depicted in Appendix 2. This holistic methodology allocates all costs to activity outputs based on estimated time and effort, and associated cost drivers. 

3.2.1 Changes in costing model techniques 

In developing the 2021-22 budget, AMSA undertook an activity-based costing and zero-based budget exercise building on the framework developed in 2020-21 that is transparent, defensible, and repeatable. The approach in developing costing models is contained in Appendix 3, including cost drivers, assumptions, and sensitivities. 

AMSA is currently engaged in the next stage of its continuous improvement program by mapping key processes, measuring effective service delivery, and analysing costs through benchmarking direct and overhead activities against industry standards to determine efficiency. This will support the government review of AMSA’s operations and reduce administrative burden and costs to regulated entities, without compromising safety. 

3.2.2 Nature of costs 

The nature and make-up of costs vary considerably across AMSA’s regulatory charging activity groups. For example, for provision and maintenance of aids to navigation there is an extensive capital cost component (depreciation), with consistently high operational maintenance costs, reflecting the hostile environmental conditions in which these assets operate. 

In contrast, compliance and certification activity groups are labour intensive and as such have a high staff cost component. Generally, activities with a large staffing level require a higher proportion of property operating expenditure and ICT overheads compared to activities that have minimal labour inputs. 

3.2.3 Cost categories 

Direct 

Direct costs are those costs directly and clearly attributed to an activity group based on estimations of resource requirements to deliver statutory and regulatory obligations, and include direct operational management support activities – direct costs include employee, suppliers, and depreciation expenditure. 

AMSA business line managers provided direct input in assigning costs to activities, including staff utilisation to achieve operational outcomes validated by estimated time and effort requirements, and supplier costs based on an analysis and nature of expenditure. 

Corporate overheads 

Overheads include property operating expenditure, ICT networking, communication costs, and enabling tasks and processes to support service delivery of AMSA’s activity outputs through provision of corporate services and executive functions. 

Enabling overheads comprise executive, human resources, finance, governance, and general ICT support – accompanying their respective share of property operating expenditure, ICT networking, and communication costs. 

AMSA applies several cost drivers to allocate indirect, support, and corporate overhead costs to direct activity outputs, as detailed in Appendix 3. 

Capital costs 

Depreciation and amortisation is a representation of capital costs, used to determine capital expenditure requirements for replacement and enhancement of assets. Assessed on an asset-by-asset basis to identify the appropriate treatment, where there is a specific direct link depreciation is assigned to that activity group, whereas corporate support related depreciation is assigned to the appropriate overhead classification. 

3.2.4 Cost estimates for 2021-22 

Estimated costs for providing AMSA’s regulatory charging activities, broken down into direct average staffing levels (ASL), and direct, overheads, and capital costs is set out in Table 3.

 Table 3: Breakdown of costs estimates for 2021-22 

Activity output and groups	Direct  ASL*	Direct   ($’000)	Corporate overheads  ($’000)	Capital  ($’000)	Total  ($’000)
Navigational infrastructure	13.9	22,721	3,973	6,832	33,526
Provision and maintenance of aids to navigation	8.7	19,005	2,670	6,672	28,347
Vessel traffic services (ReefVTS)	0.7	2,692	250	10	2,952
Provision of under keel clearance management	0.7	191	644	100	935
Standards development	2.0	497	218	26	741
Other**  (i.e. native title management, and levy management)	1.8	336	191	24	551
Environmental marine protection	14.2	20,863	3,631	1,731	26,225
National Plan pollution response	13.0	20,675	3,498	1,713	25,886
Other**  (i.e. education and engagement, and levy management)	1.2	188	133	18	339
Seafarer and ship safety	118.7	34,247	15,941	1,924	52,112
Compliance	32.0	8,901	3,927	391	13,219
Standard development	28.4	7,153	3,194	375	10,722
Integrated operations	16.9	4,617	3,677	229	8,523
Decision support and intelligence	5.2	4,431	792	64	5,287
Enforcement	10.6	2,547	1,161	128	3,836
Education and engagement	9.1	2,176	1,042	127	3,345
Maritime distress alerting and safety systems	6.8	1,762	995	323	3,080
Audit and assurance	2.8	751	309	34	1,094
Ship registration	1.6	736	197	138	1,071
Other**  (i.e. certification, qualifications, vessel traffic safety, seafarer safety, exemptions and approvals, and levy management)	5.3	1,173	647	115	1,935
Marine services & ship registration	24.0	5,858	3,118	708	9,684
Certification	7.3	2,124	1,068	352	3,544
Qualifications	9.6	1,985	1,221	115	3,321
Audit and assurance	4.6	1,313	569	57	1,939
Ship registration	2.0	286	211	178	675
Exemptions and approvals	0.5	150	49	6	205
Marine services National System	22.2	5,079	2,984	776	8,839
Certification	11.7	2,841	1,672	550	5,063
Qualifications	8.8	2,015	1,140	206	3,361
Exemptions and approvals	1.7	223	172	20	415
Total for regulatory charging	193.0	88,768	29,647	11,971	130,386

*     Direct ASL does not include line manager support, corporate support, nor non-regulatory charging activities (such as search and rescue or National System regulatory function output currently funded by government). 

**     Consists of various activities considered immaterial for reporting purposes. 

3.3 Design of regulatory charges

3.3.1 Charging structure 

Regulating international shipping and domestic commercial vessels and seafarers is a complex undertaking, with a wide variety of vessel types, manning levels, competency prerequisites, handling requirements for various cargoes, operational conditions, and jurisdiction and international obligations. 

AMSA applies a ‘user pays’ principle for regulatory charging activities. The design of AMSA’s regulatory charging activity outputs considers whether the provision of such regulatory activities is to an individual entity (reasonably attributed to that entity), or to a group of entities (provided to commercial shipping industry and broader community) – where the former, fees are charged, whereas the latter involves levies. 

AMSA’s broad charging structure is summarised in Table 4.

 Table 4: Charging structure of regulatory activity outputs 

Activity output	Charging mechanism	Structure
Levy-based activities
Navigational infrastructure	Marine Navigation Levy	Net registered tonnage – sliding scale
Environmental marine protection	Protection of the Sea Levy	Net registered tonnage – linear
Seafarer and ship safety under Navigation Act 2012 and other Acts	Regulatory Function Levy	Net registered tonnage – sliding scale
Fee-based activities
Marine services under Navigation Act 2012 and ship registration	Fee Determination  (fee-based activities)	Direct (fixed) fee or hourly rate
Marine services under National System	National Law Regulation  (fee-based activities)	Direct (fixed) fee or hourly rate

 

Levy-based activities 

AMSA’s methodology for charging levies is derived from historical predecessors, as well as international standards where banding by tonnage is considered common practice for the commercial shipping industry. Levy rates within these bands, are adjusted periodically to address shortfalls or imbalances, with the last change occurring in 2014-15. 

International commercial vessels are liable for levies on either (1) the date of arrival to an Australian port, or (2) where the vessel is in Australian waters with no corresponding paid levy applicable for the previous three months, the day after the end of that period. For Australian coastal trading vessels, unless the vessel is out-of-service, levies are payable at the start of each quarter. 

The average number of port visits during each levy payment period (three months) varies depending on the vessel type and handling of cargoes, with bulk cargo vessels averaging around one to two visits per levy payment period and container ships around five to six. 

The commercial shipping industry pays levies on non-exempted vessels⁶ that are twenty-four metres or more in tonnage length, with the rate based on a vessel’s net registered tonnage, with environmental marine protection activity output charged on vessels that also carry ten or more tonnes of oil on board⁷, with a minimum amount payable of $10. AMSA’s levy ready reckoner is in Table 5.

Table 5: AMSA’s levy ready reckoner

	Net Registered Tonnage (NRT)
From:	0	5,001	20,001	50,001
To:	5,000	20,000	50,000	∞
Levy*	Cents per NRT	Cents per NRT	Cents per NRT	Cents per NRT
Marine Navigation Levy	23.50	12.00	7.00	2.50
Regulatory Function Levy	17.00	17.10	17.00	15.50
Protection of the Sea Levy	11.25	11.25	11.25	11.25
Levy calculation method	51.75c for each tonne	$2,587.50 plus 40.35c for each tonne over 5,000	$8,640.00 plus 35.25c for each tonne over 20,000	$19,215.00 plus 29.25c each tonne over 50,000

 

The majority of vessel types visiting Australia continue to be bulk cargo carriers, with iron ore and coal vessels contributing ~67% of total net tonnage – which indicates a heavy reliance on iron ore and coal exports. 

Despite the steady increase in the quantity and size of international ships visiting Australian ports, shipping usage for aids to navigation, demand for inspections, and other regulatory functions is largely influenced by externalities that may impact volumes year-on-year. These are largely outside the control of AMSA, including the COVID-19 pandemic, potential trade disputes, economic disruptions, and the changing climate. 

In relation to environmental marine protection, given the nature and purpose of this activity, it is not possible to ascertain when a marine environmental emergency will occur. When an incident does occur, costs of clean-up operations and financial commitments can be enormous, with legal proceedings often taking years to conclude. While international compensation regimes are generally highly effective, the cost of responding to an incident can exceed the available liability and compensation limits. From evidence of significant incidents overseas, governments have had to bear the shortfall, which can be many hundreds of millions of dollars. 

These factors mean that any projections of expected growth (or reductions) in demand for regulatory charging activities must consider complex relationships within the commercial shipping industry. AMSA is continuing to develop and rollout risk-based models to provide better insights into the linkage between the level of regulation effort to cost recovered revenue from industry.  

Fee-based activities 

Fee-based activities include, assessment of applications, exemptions and determinations, inspections and surveys, registration of vessels, conducting examinations, and accreditation of non-government service providers. 

AMSA applies fixed fees to regulatory charging fee-based activities where the range of typical delivery times do not vary significantly from the standard average time. Where there are wide variations, indicated by significant divergences from the standard deviation, the basis of the relevant charge is an hourly rate, and any reasonable unavoidable travel costs. These travel costs may be flights and accommodation, where provision of services are at locations remote from AMSA’s regional offices⁸, or motor vehicle travel rates where vehicles are used for the mode of transportation to and from offices⁹. 

Marine services and ship registration is tracked using multiple systems, including a Coastal Pilotage System, International Marine Qualifications System, NAVIS (ship registration), MARS (domestic commercial vessels), and Financial Management Information System. Volumes are estimated based on inputs provided by business line managers during the budget development process, using largely historical data obtained from these various systems, and adjusted for expected variances. 

A schedule of fee-based regulatory charging activities, separated into fees under the Navigation Act 2012 and fees under National System, is included in Appendix 4. Charging rates are published on AMSA’s website. 

3.3.2 Revenue estimates 

Revenue estimates budget, and the three forward year estimates are summarised in Table 6. 

Table 6: Revenue estimates 

		Budget	Forward Year Estimates
Activity outputs		2021-22  ($’000)	2022-23  ($’000)	2023-24  ($’000)	2024-25  ($000)
Levy-based activities
Navigational infrastructure		36,226	36,625	37,000	37,375
Environmental marine protection		36,379	36,725	37,100	37,475
Seafarer and ship safety		54,595	55,150	55,700	56,250
Total levy-based activities		127,200	128,500	129,800	131,300
Fee-based activities
Fees under Navigation Act 2012 and Shipping Registration Act 1981		3,885	3,885	3,885	3,885
Fees for National System		3,805	3,805	3,805	3,805
Total fee-based activities		7,690	7,690	7,690	7,690
Total regulatory charging		134,890	136,190	137,490	138,790

3.3.3 COVID-19 disruptions and bushfire relief 

In 2020-21, AMSA committed to the continuation of providing relief to the domestic commercial industry and seafarers from natural disaster disruptions, such as the 2019-20 bushfires, and COVID-19 pandemic. As part of this commitment, AMSA has implemented: 

• exempting vessels used in emergencies such as evacuation of bushfire victims, 
• minimum safe manning requirements and safety management system temporary updates in response to a natural disaster, and 
• general exemption for seafarers providing an extension for certificates of competency with expiry dates between 26 March 2020 and 31 January 2021, with no charge for the process for applying for renewals. 

3.3.4 Review of charging structures 

AMSA is engaged in a comprehensive all-inclusive review of its regulatory charging activities, structures and rates in anticipation of the government review. The following specific items are planned to be assessed over the next twenty-four months: 

• Following the refined activity-based costing and zero-based budget exercise, undertake an analysis of direct processes and corporate overheads to assess efficiency, including benchmarking with external entities. 
• Assess levy regulatory drivers to approximate levels of resources used to produce activity outputs, to demonstrate a linkage between the level of effort and the output. Initial findings indicate net tonnage for our levies (Marine Navigation Levy, Protection of the Sea Levy, and Regulatory Functions Levy) may be an appropriate driver of effort. Work is continuing to finalise AMSA’s conclusions, with any proposed change to involve wide and extensive consultation.  
• Assess whether the delivery of fee-based activity outputs at minimal costs is the most effective and efficient way to deliver services, and whether industry can fully absorb the resultant cost of service delivery. 
• Review hourly and fixed rates of fee-based activities under the Navigation Act 2012, Shipping Registration Act 1981, and the National System. Where similar personnel, expertise, and services are performed, rates should align. 
• Investigate an indexation strategy (if applicable) on regulatory charging activities and the need to regularly revise charge-out rates, to reduce inflationary pressures on costs. 
• Work with industry and government on an agreed level of maintenance and utilisation of regulatory charging reserves to fund specific requirements. 

AMSA will engage widely and extensively with stakeholders once the government review commences, providing opportunities for feedback on any proposed changes, with provisions to address industry concerns. A stakeholder engagement strategy will be prepared for each consultation. 

Footnotes

⁶ There is a list of exemptions contained in the Marine Navigation Levy Collection Regulations 2018, Marine Navigation (Regulatory functions) Levy Collection Act 1991, and Protection of the Sea (Shipping Levy) Regulation 2014.

⁷ There will be situations where vessels exempted from both the Marine Navigation Levy and Regulatory Function Levy may be liable for the Protection of the Sea Levy. Generally, these vessels include fishing, religious charitable, non-for-profit organisation, or research vessels.

⁸ Given the various locations of AMSA offices, these costs will generally be limited.

⁹ Defined as more than twenty-five (25) kilometres from an AMSA office, the charge is based on a per kilometre basis specified by the Australian Taxation Office business use rates.