Well I received my FOI request reply today.
Shocking reading.
I don't feel comfortable sharing it verbatim online as I don't feel thats fair to the CAA (although its public data really, available to all), if you ask I can share privately.
Some headline figures for you...
Apparently 18 staff work full time (+/- staff leave and/or other absence) on applications, the longest takes 8 weeks at the peek in October, and there were 1392 applications to process on w/e 23 Oct - (225 initial issue professional, 853 private, and 284 admin changes) - gulp... (these figures are less today with 851 licenses still in the queue w/e 20th november)
What is interesting is that the net reduction in the queue in October was only 100 a week (incoming - processed = net reduction).
With 18 staff working a 5 day week, they were only able to clear 101 applications that week. Thats 1.1 per staff member per day... draw from that what you will...
At the end of that week there were still 1392 applications to process...
Another more recent example, week ending 20th November they received 239 new applications, and only processed 267. Thats a net reduction in the queue of only 28, leaving 851 in the queue at the end of that week.
28 applications between 18 staff members is 0.3 applications processed per day per staff member processed. again draw from that what you will...
The usual excuse of under staffing, and lots of applications over the summer being the excuse that it takes our regulator 8 weeks to issue a license...