jack-oh
Thanks for a good read, enjoying this a lot.
To address your point we must go back to when CAA and NATS were one and the same. When the divorce came about the eventual settlement gave NATS [ THE MONOPOLY EN-ROUTE SERVICE PROVIDER] the lions share of the responsibilities and power that it had enjoyed when there were no clearly defined boundaries of task definition; basically the one large melting pot did everything in-house and staff moved freely from one discipline to the other. If NATS were to restrict itself to being purely an ATC service provider there would be massive staff shrinkage and reduction in charges, and the CAA proper would not cope without major increase in staff and resources [budget].
It suits NATS to be in charge of everything, have you noticed how international agreements and future proposals come from NATS and not from the regulatory authority. They want to be separate when it is convenient to be seen to be separate, but in reality almost all of the old strings are still attached under the table.
Gosh...could ANY of this be true?
Couldn't spell self-engrandisement earlier so deleted a really boring paragraph!
RGDS.