I am led to believe that rather than "privatise" the RFA present thinking is just the reverse. It's quite possible that the RFA could be subsumed into the RN in the future. Not immediately, but foreseeable. I suppose that some of the reasons for this projected idea is the level of "militaryness" being built into the newer RFAs. In the past there were always good reasons to have the ships manned by civilians, be registered as "merchant ships" and so be able to enter foreign ports without the hassle of getting diplomatic clearance and all that sort of stuff. Everyone knew that this was a bit of a sham, but played along. As we do with the US MSC ships.
But of course there are many other considerations....the main one being that of cost effectiveness. In the past I would agree that the RFA was top-heavy on the Officer side, but things have changed over the last few years. More and more ratings and POs have been trained (at RN establishments) to do jobs that were once the preserve of the officer ranks. Now don't go and blame the officers for this state of affairs! It all came down to the way the RFA was developed. When I first joined the RFA most of the ratings were drawn from "the pool". No, they weren't all "scousers", it meant that they came from the Shipping Federation". A "pool" man was a seafarer who was not contracted to a particular shipping company and was therefore free to pick and choose (to a degree) which ship / company he would "sign on" with. Of course, many companies had their own "stock" of contracted personnel who were trained in the ways of their chosen company. An exception being Radio Officers, the vast majority of whom were employed by Marconi (but some were employed by Seimens). This meant that the R/Os were not trained in RN communications, so the ships had little in the way of "secret" or secure equipment. Once the RFA began training its own "communicators" things changed. More involvement in Fleet exercises became possible. So the Bridge staff had to be trained up to RN standards. But the ratings were basically left alone.
This did cause problems as can be imagined. Especially on the newer ammo ships and other specialised vessels (those with embarked flights for instance). But gradually the crews became more and more RFA orientated and together with the decline in the mainstream merchant navy a solid core of permanent employees came about.
I can only really speak for the deck department, but apart from the usual day to day "sailoring" type of work, many ratings became highly trained and very competent in other fields. So over the years this has ldeveloped into a more homogenous ships complement. But one thing stands out viv-a-vis the RN. The RFA personnel are (honestly) better at "multi-tasking" than their RN counterparts. This is partly due to the fact that most RFA personnel are life long professional seafarers, and not "in and out" in a few years. So the RFA gives a commitment and long term expertise. I'm not decrying the RN here, just stating a fact of life. But as "things" progressed and the RFA has become ever closer to the RN (many RFA people are now trained at Dartmouth alongside their RN counterparts) it's obvious that some sort of "co-joining" would be mooted.
Way back in 1991 "Fort Austin" was even visited by a group of Marks and Spencer executives with a view to them taking over some aspects of the supply-side of things. Came to nothing, really.
However. I would think that the big "sticking point" is the civilian status of the RFA personnel. If they had wanted to join the RN they would have done so. An RN manned RFA would have a much enlarged crew (multi-tasking again, for which they are not trained) and so probably more expensive to operate. There are quite evidently many problems in the pipeline, but as the RFA is now more or less absorbed into the mainstream UK Defence Forces I'm sure that a neat solution will be found. BY.
