All financial accounting is smoke and mirrors and NATS is no exception. The slight difference is that NERL does everything in the spotlight of regulation so it's all out there if you want to look. It's quite hard to plan a half decent conspiracy if you have to publish everything and the regulator has plenty of staff more than qualified in unravelling the NATS accounts.
a competent management plans a financial strategy to fund all expenditure both current and predicted.
Interestingly that's exactly why we've been having this debate over 1205 posts. NATS management has identified a hole in the accounts and the need to do something about it. I don't like the fact there is a hole and I'm not happy with the effect on my pension but I'd rather we were having this conversation than it being put in the too hard drawer until it's too late. Like NATS and the NTUS I don't think doing nothing is an option.
if management were any good they would not be working for us
Presumably you could argue the same about all of us who could earn more elsewhere. In my opinion this particular set of management are better than those that went before them. That doesn't mean there isn't better out there and it doesn't mean I like the pressures that come from being a company rather than a cosy Government agency but they have far more idea of real management than the time served people who previously occupied those posts. Given the cards the Government dealt them post PPP I think they've done as well as could be expected, we will never know if somebody else could have done better.
The pension holiday saved NATS from going under. If you don't believe that take a look at the two reports written by the National Audit Office, they are both available on line. If you think it was used instead for inappropriate purposes I'd like to see the evidence for that.