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...
They have sent you misleading data because no doubt that doesn't give you a clear picture of the processing of same day items.
Clearly the people who are physically turning up at the CAA on a daily basis and paying [what is it £80+ a go for someone to tick some boxes and press print] are getting service and those in the inbox are getting ignored. If you think about it on that basis the poor service is a cash cow.
In the end its the CAA or nothing, poor service encourages more people to turn up and spend £80 and ultimately what are you going to do? Ask for data from a FOI request, which you then want to protect them from anyway!! I'm sure the executive must be quaking.