airac, just to keep going off at a tangent, where does your info on ATSOCAS come from? I've been waiting to see the final Comment Response Document from the consultation - but there doesn't seem to be one yet......
As for whether a training plan can be produced in two months - who knows until we can see what the finalised procedures look like. Who can tell whether August (assuming that the training plans are approved that quickly) to mid-January is long enough to do the requisite training.
I agree with you that this all seems a bit rushed, particularly as about two years seems to have been wasted after the latest prompt to review the procedures before the CAA got around to doing anything.
As a knee-jerk reaction I could see some units with the option simply deciding not to provide services outside CAS so there would be no need to do any of this training malarky - still, if it's good enough for ScATCC..... And I guess that would be marked up as a success for the CAA.
I'm a bit dubious that one could develop a generic training plan for many aspects of unit procedures, but for a change to national procedures I don't see why not. Frankly, unless you have an especially dense bunch of controllers on a unit I can't see why the training needs to be anything more that a briefing on the differences between old an new procedures.
Oh well, I can't get too wound up about it because it's all going to change again soon when EASA starts setting the rules, and air traffic control (regardless of what anyone chooses to call the service) is going to be persona non grata.
Ho hum....I must be getting cynical in my old age.