Here's one to think about. ATPL exam fees, £55 a paper, 130+ candidates each paper each month, 14 papers..... er .... £55 x 130 x 14 = .......gosh, that's over £100,000 a month or £1.2 million pounds a year. You'd think they could get exam confirmations out in time.
I doubt each sitting student will be taking 14 exams at each sitting. I would guess about 5 on average. I met quite a few who were just taking one or two. Some of the other schools do 4/5 per sitting. Still a lot of money though!
To be fair, it should be a user pays system. To publicly fund the CAA would be wrong. The question is, within aviation who subsidises who? It seems to me that the license issue costs are understandable as each license is probably a couple of hours work for a couple of people plus the IT and facilities infrastructure needed to support those people. The exams though, I don't understand £55+ per exam at all. That is just money for old rope as is the 5 year license renewal and a few other things!