Assuming your comments are serious and not just a general stir I'll rise to the bait. Where do you get the figure of £3/400 for Yachtmaster practical from as this seems incorrect to me. The cost of the Yachtmaster exam is the cost for the examiner for a day and is around £100 (I can't be bothered to look up the exact figure but it's not bad for a full day of someone's time with admin overheads). The cost you are quoting is the cost of doing a commercial 5 day course prior to the exam and is not a requisite, of course if you feel you need the training to be able to meet the standard then that's a different matter but if someone can't pass the exam without it perhaps they should carefully consider their qualification to teach others anyway. It is all very well knowing the theory but if the owner of that knowledge is not capable of putting the theory into practise would you have faith in them? As to giving out ICC's willy nilly as has already been pointed out there is a set standard for automatic issue and that has nothing to do with the RYA who are acting responsibly in insisting on the standards. In any case if you don't want to go the Yachtmaster route to get an ICC why not just do the ICC?