Sounds like a few are happy with the Big Sky theory. Id ask " Were all parties aware of their responsibilities for separation? " VFR man didnt appear to be, as he had his head in the clouds - literally; so lady luck was doing the actual separating by the sounds of it. Though not responsible for providing an actual sep service I would have thought ATC would also have a duty of care regarding clearances issued within CAS. Surely the controller would have been aware of local met conditions within his area of responsibility from METARs, pilot reports, and sector obs etc. If I looked out the window and could se that the cct area cloudbase was less than 1500 or so I would be very careful about giving anyone a VFR clearance with potentially conflicting IFR traffic about. SVFR maybe if thats used in the UK and then I think a sep standard is required in class D ; that may be a localism country to country - I cant remember.
This type of incident probably happens in the UK a fair bit due in part to the changeable and very crappy polar maritime weather by the sound of it. Potentially an accident waiting to happen.
Id file soemthing if only to add to the CAA (?) flight safety database . May be useful for when the sh*t does hit the fan for some poor unfortunate . Or, if the "pile of similar reports " becomes too high, maybe someone will take a closer look at the "problem" before anything like an accident actually eventuates!
DogGone
