whowhenwhy
Ok - maybe my posting was a little simplistic in the vein of DoC.
There is nothing to stop you giving him necessary information "for the safe conduct of flight" - that's the definition of FIS and it also fulfills Duty of Care. What I'm getting at is this constant passing of traffic information to VFR / FIS aircraft that is not necessary. He's VFR, he's elected to accept the responsibility of see and avoid, that's it - simple.
What we have does work well - nobody's saying it doesn't. However, that is down to the individual controllers who provide the service, not the infrastructure available. As attitudes change and we become more slaves to the bean counters we need to find a solution to ATC provision in this country which is efficient in terms of shifting traffic safely for the money available, and rationalisation both in service provision and airspace is the only way that's going to be achieved.