Even when you are paying through the nose, in my experience courses normally start with the trainer full acknowledging that he doesn’t have enough content for the 7 hours, so the day will have to be interspersed with driver stories, funny videos, tea breaks etc. You have guys paying £65 + VAT + upload fee for that. Say there are 24 people, that is £1560, essentially to sit and tell each other stories and listen to the trainer read out slides. I fully understand cost in course development, but you go back to these places and it is the same slides as 5 years ago.
As one guy in his seventies said at one of these courses, it feels like being sentenced to a certain number of hours of community service that you have to pay to attend.
For the o/p, agencies are sometimes running courses with freelance CPC trainers on their own premises. Even if you aren’t registered with the agency, the trainer may be looking to up the numbers to make it worthwhile. Sometimes you can get a reasonable deal with these guys paying on the door, as they don’t have the overheads. I doubt you would get lunch, but it might be more cost-effective for you. Making a few enquiries may be worth a shot.