Earlier this summer I published a post about vacancies and the Free School Meal percentages of schools. I promised that I would look at headteacher turnover by the percentage of Fee School Meals at those schools advertising for a new headteacher this year.
The data by regions for the period of adverts from 1st January 2022 until last Friday is in the table below
1st JAN TO 19th AUGUST 2022
0-9.9% on FSM
10-19.9% on FSM
20%+ on FSM
East Midlands
29%
32%
39%
100%
East of England
28%
40%
32%
100%
London
21%
30%
50%
100%
North East
21%
25%
54%
100%
North West
30%
27%
43%
100%
South East
40%
32%
28%
100%
South West
24%
43%
34%
100%
West Midlands
24%
30%
46%
100%
Yorkshire & Humber
24%
27%
49%
100%
AVERAGE
27%
32%
42%
100%
Source: TeachVac
Now this is a crude piece of analysis, as it just takes the school and places it in one of three bands for Free School Meals percentage at the school, as recorded by the DfE. The table also incudes both primary and secondary schools, and also does not distinguish between schools that have only advertised one and those that have advertised more than once. There has been a discussion about trends in re-advertising amongst primary schools using data from one authority in another recent post on this blog.
Anyway, urban areas, not surprisingly, have the highest percentages of schools in the 20% plus grouping, with London having 50% of advertised headships from such schools, compared with 28% of headships in the South East and 32% in the East of England falling in this grouping; both areas with high employment and significant areas of affluence. The South East had the largest percentage of schools in the lowest groups of less than 10% of pupils in the school eligible for Free School Meals. This compared with just 21% in London and the North East regions schools that have advertised for a new headteacher.
If I have time, I will look at both re-advertisements and create a standard number based upon the size of the school roll to consider whether this has any effect. Separating out primary and secondary schools, and perhaps schools of a religious character and other schools might also be interesting.
We can expect the current average of 22.5% of pupils eligible for Free School Meals to increase as any recession bites. How much may depend upon how government help with energy bills is counted in a family income total.
The data are a useful indicator of the sufficiency of places, especially at popular schools that are always over-subscribed. Two sets of data matter: admissions to infant classes -the major of schools for this group are primary schools – and admission to secondary school.
The most important driver of appeals is the trend in birth for the year-group. Is it in a period of above average births or is the opposite true. The system provides a place for every child wanting one, but at peak times does not always expand popular schools, despite government pledges about parental choice that occur from time to time. When the birth rate is low, relatively more parents can gain admission to popular schools for their offspring without having to move house or devise other strategies to challenge the system.
At present, the country is in a period where numbers entering infant classes are falling, but there is still excess demand in the secondary sector for popular schools. This is shown in the following tables
Time period
school_phase
appeals_ lodged percentage
Appeals_heard_ percentage
successful_appeals_ percentage
2016
Primary (infant classes)
3.3
2.3
11.8
2017
Primary (infant classes)
3
2
11.7
2018
Primary (infant classes)
2.6
1.7
9.9
2019
Primary (infant classes)
2
1.4
12.6
2020
Primary (infant classes)
1.9
1.3
10.9
2021
Primary (infant classes)
1.8
1.2
10.5
2022
Primary (infant classes)
1.6
1
9.5
Source: DfE
2022 marked the sixth year in succession when appeals lodge and heard as a percentage of those seeking admission to infant classes fell. Only, 1.6% of admissions resulted in an appeal for 2021/22 school-year, compared with 3.3% for 2014/15. Appeals heard were even lower, at only 1.0%. The difference resulted from either a place being found at the school or parents accepting another school or choosing to use the private sector instead. Places become available as some parents request a place at a state school but then decide to use the private sector.
Interestingly, as appeals fall as a percentage of admissions, parents don’t find they are more successful by going to appeal. In fact, the opposite is the case. In these data only 9.5% of appeals were successful; the lowest since before the 2015/16 school-year. This probably reflects the fact that many of these appeals are for the most popular schools, and there is a limit of 30 on infant class sizes. Parents failing at appeal can always place their child on a ’continuing interest’ list for consideration should a place become available for any reason. This allows for the exercise of parental choice.
In the secondary sector, the pressure of recent years when the bulge year-groups transferred from primary to secondary school appears to be easing.
time_period
School _phase
appeals_lodged _percentage
appeals_heard _percentage
successful_appeals _percentage
2016
Secondary
4.5
3.6
26.3
2017
Secondary
4.8
3.7
24.6
2018
Secondary
5.3
4.1
23.4
2019
Secondary
5.5
4.6
23.3
2020
Secondary
6
4.9
22.2
2021
Secondary
5.1
4.1
20.1
2022
Secondary
5
3.9
21.1
Source: DfE
Appeals lodged fell for the second year in a row, as did appeals heard, where the percentage was the lowest since the 2016/17 school-year. Successful appeals also ticked upwards from the low point in 2020/21 of 20.1%, to 21.1% for 2021/22. Interestingly, presumably because secondary schools are generally larger institutions than primary schools with more ‘wriggle room’, successful appeals in the secondary sector tend to be a much higher percentage of appeals heard than in the primary sector.
One remaining area for appeals, even when the birth-rate is at a low point in the demographic cycle, relates to the building of new housing estates, and the provision of schools, especially secondary schooling where a new school will eventually be built, but early owners may have to rely upon existing schools and their admissions policies.
In these cases, parental choice and the notion of catchment areas may collide. In rural areas these days, there is also the issue of the provision of free transport. Local Authorities normally now only provide transport to the ‘nearest school’, thus preventing many parents from exercising any parental choice. With council budgets under severe pressure, and the growth of academies setting their own rules on admissions, the reason for this is clear, but upsetting for some parents.
When Transport for London offered free travel across their region for young people, politicians at Westminster couldn’t see what the problem was, even if their postbags were full of complaints from constituents.
A falling birth-rate does have one other advantage for government. Either cash can be saved as fewer new schools are needed or time-expired school buildings can be replaced with up-to-date new facilities. In the past, some local authorities used to be very good at exploiting this trend and renewing many of their schools when cash for replacement schools was on offer. But, that’s for another blog.
A quarter of a century ago I had a job at the then Teacher Training Agency. My post was titled as ‘the Chief Professional Adviser on Teacher Supply’. The job title was an oxymoron since I wasn’t a chief and I had no professional qualification for the job. However, I did have experience in researching teacher supply and I have continued to do so after my departure from the TTA, after only one year, and up to the present day.
Schoolsweek in their story concentrate on the fact that the government has launched a teacher training “sufficiency steering group” amid fears its ITT market review will slash provider numbers by a third and leave England with a shortage of places.
As I remarked in my previous blog post about the re-accreditation process, the battle between quality and sufficiency of places across the country has always been settled in favour of quality providers with scant regard to geography. End ITT deserts | John Howson (wordpress.com) I argued that was a mistake.
However, the maintaining the current number of courses at a time when pupil numbers are falling in the primary sector, and will stop increasing soon in the secondary sector may not be sensible, and does need a re-think. If that re-think provides a better geographical balance, all well and good. However, does it also need to provide for a range of different type of provider; from higher education to school-based routes, as well as salaried trainees to courses funded through the student loan route?
These ground rules really should have been settled before the re-accreditation process commenced. Worrying about sufficiency half-way through could make a mockery of the whole process.
There is also the issue of how to handle shortfalls in recruitment, should they arise. Will providers be paid to stay in business even if they fail to recruit sufficient trainees to cover their costs?
An open discussion at the time off the Market Review about how and where we train teachers and how many we need to train would have prevented the current atmosphere of suspicion surrounding the whole process of re-accreditation.
With teaching now having become a global profession, we cannot afford to make a mess of the management of the process of preparing the next generation of teachers. However, it has to be recalled that the present policy of quality taking precedence over location has led to an uneven distribution of courses across the country. Schools, and even universities, don’t have to train teachers, and it is well worth remembering that fact.
I hope the next Secretary of State will want to work with the sector on ensuring high quality teacher preparation provision spread across the country to meet the needs of schools. However, I am not holding my breath.
The DfE have recently updated their study on ‘Education, children’s social care and offending, descriptive statistics’ with some 10 case studies of different local authorities. One of the case studies is of Haringey, the north London borough. Education, children’s social care and offending – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Regular readers of this blog will know why I have focused on this report. For new readers, I started my teaching career in a school in Tottenham that is part of the Borough of Haringey. For personal reasons this study also brings back memories of a particular incident in January 1977 that found me on the front page of The Daily Mirror.
Much of what is in the analysis will not surprise readers, and the authors go out of their way to remind everyone reading the report that a causal relationship cannot be inferred from any characteristic.
I do have a slight issue with the choice of offences listed. There are no driving offences, such as ‘death by dangerous or careless driving’ in the list, although in my view they involve violence. Perhaps, there weren’t any recorded offences in these categories. Maybe, the same reason will apply to ‘aggravated burglary’ that can include violence.
I would recommend this report or one of the others in the selection of the ten authorities to any new teacher. Indeed, much more focus should probably be placed on the teaching of challenging pupils during teacher preparation courses. Interestingly, the report doesn’t allocate points to characteristics and score the profile of a young person ‘at risk’. He is likely to be male; few females even these days commit offences in the categories included. He is likely to do better at maths than English: an interesting observation. For the rest, you can read the report and look at the graphs, although some data are so small as to be suppressed, as they might allow individuals to be identified.
For policymakers, and I include our next Prime Minister in that group, there has to be a consideration as to whether the focus on the subjects in the English Baccalaureate and a lack of resources for practical and vocational might have had cost implications for society. Those that successfully complete their education may well be less likely to commit acts of violence.
This blog has been championing a Jacob’s Law and has also supported the need for inter-agency working. I am not clear whether this report also considered children not yet in school because they had just moved into Haringey, and their offending behaviour.
What seems certain is that spending on those at the late stage of primary education and early secondary schooling may well be worthwhile. Indeed, ensuring every child, regardless of SEND needs, can read and write is something we ought to strive to achieve, so that no child starts secondary school regarded by the school as a failure.
The depressing fact is that such a statement could have been made at any time in the history of education. We know the problem, but have not been willing to create the solution.
This September, schools will have had to update their websites to take account of the Education (Guidance about costs of School Uniforms) Act 2021. This was a Private Members Bill, passed last year. The provisions, although requiring more work from schools, are no doubt timely for parents where schools have taken the new Act’s sentiment and coupled it with dealing with the effects of the present cost of living crisis.
In one location I know well, one academy is offering a free blazer to every child entering Year 7. However, another academy that is changing its name this September is requiring all pupils to have the full new uniform. Blazer, tie and PE T-shirt must be purchased from the nominated supplier. For those without access to the internet, the supplier’s shop is probably two bus rides away across town. Although a faith school, the school’s website doesn’t make any obvious reference to assistance, especially for families with more than one child at the school: not much evidence of Christian Charity, although the same school has support for Ukrainian refugees.
The need for charity to start at home is emphasised by the fact that many local authorities have scrapped grants for uniforms that were once commonplace. Authorities can still make grants of up to £300, but few can afford to do so.
As a twin, I well recall the costs of kitting out two boys for secondary school at the same time. That summer, our holiday was with relatives, perhaps to save for the cost of uniforms plus accessories.
One school site I viewed recently even required a calculator priced at £16.99. no doubt it is useful for every pupil to use the same one; but it does erode the concept of ‘free education’, especially when the school’s accounts for 2021 revealed a balance of over £1 million pounds, partly helped by the delay in constructing new facilities. Might this be a case of my old bugbear, transferring revenue into capital and expecting parents to make up the deficit?
Of even more concern than the cost of school unforms to many families in rural areas is the cost of actually reaching school each day, especially if the school is just under the three-mile limit for free transport or the child is aged 16-18. The situation is compounded where there is now no local bus service or convenient rail station.
For any young person wanting to attend a further education college or be faced with a mandatory change of school in an 11-16 plus sixth form set-up, the cost can be serious. Whether it is enough to put-off some young people from studying expensive courses, where students required to purchase expensive equipment to take the course, we just don’t know.
Free school meals have received a lot of publicity, the other costs to families associated with schools, especially in rural area, where wages are often lower than the average, and some workers must live in tied-accommodation, has received less consideration. Swop shops and second-hand stores may help, but governing bosies should be mindful of the costs of attending their schools, especially for families where several children are attending at the same time. And, then there is the in-year costs to consider, such as school trips.
How much does the type of school matter when trying to recruit a new headteacher? More many years than I can count, indeed almost since I started researching the labour market for school leaders in England, way back in the1980s, it has seemed that data has always pointed to certain schools finding recruitment a challenge.
So, with a bit of spare time, I thought I would look at the experiences in one large shire county (not Oxfordshire) in the period between January 2021 and the end of July 2022.
Vacancies for headteachers in state-funded primary schools – one shire county Jan 21-July22
ADVERTS
INFANT
JUNIOR
PRIMARY – M
PRIMARY – CE
PRIMARY – RC
1
10
8
8
9
1
2
6
5
7
9
0
3
2
0
0
1
0
4
3
1
0
0
0
5
0
2
0
2
0
6+
0
0
0
2
0
TOTAL
21
16
15
23
1
2+
11
7
7
14
0
% 2+
52%
44%
47%
61%
0%
Source TeachVac
Interestingly, although Infant schools appear to fare better than other schools in terms of recruiting after a single advertisement, three of the ten schools in the table placed their first advertisement during either June or July of 2022. Discounting those schools produces a 2+ percentage for infant schools of 61% and not 52%. This is the same as for Church of England Primary Schools.
However, although most infant and junior schools in this locality are Maintained schools, there are some Church of England Infant and junior schools, and they seem more likely than the maintained schools to have to re-advertise.
Indeed, Church of England schools account for all of the primary schools with more than two rounds of advertisements for a headteacher. These include one school with the original vacancy plus six rounds of re-advertisements and another school with the original advertisement plus nine further rounds of advertisements between May 2021 and June 2022.
In any normal year, about half of headteacher vacancies appear between January and March. Vacancies advertised later in the year tend to be harder to fill unless there is local interest in taking on the school. Unless a primary school has access to subscription advertising for its vacancies, this can become an expensive business, especially for a small primary school. MATs may be able to cover these costs, but with local authorities not able to top-slice school budgets in the same way, this can be an expensive problem for governing bodies, especially if headteachers only stay in post for a few years in such schools.
There is much less of an issue in filling vacancies for headteachers of secondary and all-through schools, although some of the same caveats about timing remain. Also, for the secondary sector, the type of school and its Free School Meals ranking outside of recessionary times may affect the degree of interest. These issues are discussed further in TeachVac’s annual review of the leadership labour market in England.
So, a community primary school advertising in January each year should have little difficulty finding a new headteacher. The governing body of a Church of England school whose headteacher needs replacing in June will probably find themselves facing a challenge in their search for a replacement.
Between January and the start of August this year, the body charged with regulating the teaching profession announced decisions on the futures of just over 90 teachers. Outcomes have ranged from ‘No Order Made’ to indefinite prohibition from working as a teacher anywhere in England to prohibition with the opportunity to seek reregistration after a set period of time, although a return to the Register of Qualified teachers isn’t guaranteed. In passing, it should be noted that the term ‘teacher’ isn’t restricted in its use only to those on the Register: anyone can call themselves at teacher.
Men outnumbers women in those barred from teaching in these announcements, by around two to one, even though men are in the minority in the profession as a whole. The overwhelming majority of men barred from teaching were as a result of an issue to do with sex in some form or another; usually involving someone underage. More than 40 men were barred from teaching for this reason in announcements just in this seven-month period of 2022; along with just three women.
Two women were barred for misconduct associated with assessment. This low number may well reflect the nature of schooling and assessment since the start of the pandemic. Similarly, there were only two barring for financial reasons. There were however, a number of barring resulting from inappropriate behaviour towards pupils. This ranged from actual assaults to other behaviour seen to have crossed the line from what is acceptable.
Two teachers were struck-off for running an unregistered school, while there were a couple of cases of false references supplied by teachers in connection with job applications.
Not all incidents took place in or even involving schools. Teachers can be barred for incidents outside schools, including their use of social media and who they live with.
If you live with someone caught supplying drugs then you must tell the school authorities and your line manager straight away, especially if your premises is searched for drugs. Similarly, if you end up in court for almost any reason it is wise to declare the fact as soon as possible and indeed normally well before charges are brough if you are arrested and placed on bail. If you are remanded in custody, the school will likely know, as you won’t be able to turn up for work but you should still inform them.
Two issues arise from considering these judgements. Firstly, what about others working in schools that commit similar acts. Presumably, they are sacked for gross misconduct, but should there be a way of barring them from working with young people even if they are not professionals?
Secondly, there seem to be some areas where perhaps ‘sentencing guidelines’ might now help both panels and teachers to judgements. One such area is driving under the influence of alcohol. The small number of cases this year did seem to produce a range of outcomes. Aggravating factors might be ‘on school premises’ or ‘in the presence of children’ while mitigating factors could be ‘declared treatment started before the incident’ and ‘extreme stress in work and home life’. Clearly, letters of support do seem to swing the judgement about outcomes, and the weight of ‘being an excellent teacher’ should be signalled clearly in guidance.
The Secretary of State must sign-off panel judgements, with an appeal to the high court being the only further outcome. Should the Secretary of State, or in reality a civil servant, have this right of judgement of the panel’s decision or should panel outcomes only be subject to an appeal to a court?
In my first lectureship in higher education, during the early 1980s, at what is now the University of Worcester, I introduced an assessment task that involved students collaborating together to produce a presentation using recorded sound and images. Fortunately, the External Examiner was farsighted and endorsed the idea. Later, in the 1990s, while part of the leadership team at Oxford Brookes University, their School of Education developed several modules that required students to work together on assessed coursework.
‘Improvement is needed in how teamwork skills are taught across educational and professional settings Workshop participants identified weaknesses in the previous and current development of teamwork skills in schools, universities and workplaces. It was suggested that engaging university students with teamwork learning can be very challenging. Some speculated on individualised versus collaborative pathways to academic achievement, comparing BTEC and A-Level students’ different attitudes to teamwork. It may be that assessment structures with less focus on individual attainment allow for increased development of collaborative and creative skills in young people.’ Page 33 footnotes omitted
This led me to wonder whether at both GCSE and A level there ought to be opportunities for collaborative learning as well as the traditional individual competition for grades? Could it replace the extended individual project?
Elsewhere in the report there is a focus on the need for greater digital literacy.
‘Digital literacy is becoming a basic skill requirement for the majority of occupations across all sectors in the UK labour market, including productivity software tools such as spreadsheets and word processing programmes. OECD PISA analysis has also shown that educational access to technology and subsequent building of digital literacy is increasingly important across the globe, leading to better academic performance and competence. Basic digital literacy skills are considered to be those needed to carry out tasks such as communication via digital applications and internet searches or navigation.’ Page 11 footnotes omitted
The report also acknowledges that the collection, handling and analysis of data will also be important across the future workforce: something that is music to my ears after years of collecting data about the teacher labour market for teachers Labour Market Report – January to July 2022 (teachvac.co.uk)
Now the purpose of schooling is not just to prepare children for adult life, but how far it should balance the need to progress to higher education against life beyond education is an interesting debate. Team games obviously help with developing skills and after this week I hope there will be no more talk of selling of school playing fields for housing or other uses. But not all pupils enjoy sport and different teams need different skills sets.
The school children entering primary school this September probably won’t retire until 2084. What will their working life look like and should those of us concerned with education care?
In my previous post about the July postgraduate ITT numbers, I concentrated just on the headlines, and the potentially dire implications for the 2023 teacher recruitment round if the collapse of the economy doesn’t both stem departures from teaching and encourage more returners back into the profession.
In this post, I want to look in more detail at the data in the July numbers, now published by the DfE. Monthly statistics on initial teacher training (ITT) recruitment – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) The total number of candidates applying has reached 35,633, but this compares badly with the 44,970 of July 2021. More alarming is the fact that the ‘recruited’ total is down from 8,620 in July 2021 to 3,911 this July. That’s the number in the bag, so to say, and most likely to turn up when courses commence. Even more worrying that the number with ‘conditions pending’ is down from 23,030 to 18,699. The number of withdrawn candidates has increased from 1,281 last July to 2,010 this July. These are not good numbers for the health of the profession.
Comparing the ‘other’ column against ‘all applications’ in the July 2021 data and the ‘unsuccessful’ against ‘all applications’ in the July 2022 data shows that across all subjects more applications have been successful.
Subject
2021 Successful
2022 Successful
Difference
Languages
na
29%
na
Computer Studies
21%
28%
7%
D&T
27%
34%
7%
Physics
23%
30%
7%
Music
28%
34%
6%
Art
26%
32%
6%
Business Studies
20%
26%
6%
Biology
23%
29%
6%
Mathematics
23%
28%
5%
PE
22%
27%
5%
RE
27%
32%
5%
English
25%
30%
5%
Drama
29%
33%
4%
Chemistry
27%
31%
4%
Geography
27%
31%
4%
History
26%
30%
4%
Classics
23%
25%
2%
Source UCAS and DfE data
Whether the increase in the level of success is due to similar numbers of acceptable candidates against a smaller overall pool or providers accepting candidates that they might not have accepted before cannot be determined from the data. Perhaps it is a bit of both strategies that is taking place.
Applications are lower across all age groups this round, with the key new graduate ‘21 and under’ group down from 5,650 to 4,591 candidates this July. Those who gender is recorded as male candidate has fallen from 13,350 to 10,591. This is despite the number not recorded as either men or women falling from 1,240 to 351 this July.
Applications have fallen for both primary and secondary phase courses. Down from 51,310 to 43,242 for the former and from 65,990 to 53,532 for the latter.
While numbers applying for postgraduate teaching apprenticeships increased from 3,610 to 4,427 applications; a modest increase, but, nevertheless an increase: all other routes had witnessed a decline in applications.
Hopefully, at least in the context of teacher preparation courses, this will be as bad as it will be, and next year the changes in the broader economy will once again swing the pendulum back towards the desirability of teaching as a career, perhaps aided by a recognition of the necessary rewards required to attract and retain teachers. If not, then the government will have set a record in terms of the length of the period of under-recruitment into teacher preparation courses.
In August 2013, when this blog was in its infancy, I incurred the wrath of the DfE by suggesting that there was going to be a teacher supply crisis.
As reported by this blog on 14th August 2013 “A DfE spokesperson, helpfully anonymous, is quoted by the Daily Mail today as saying of my delving into the current teacher training position that there was no teacher shortage, adding: ‘This is scaremongering and based on incomplete evidence.’”
Regular readers know whose view of the situation was correct.
Why am I reprising this quote from nine years ago? Well, normally around the middle of the month the DfE, following the time-honoured tradition set by first the GTTR and then UCAS, publishes the monthly update on applications and offer to postgraduate ITT.
The DfE duly created the data on the 25th of July this year, but at least as far as my browser is concerned, the data didn’t appear on their web site. June’s data remained the latest in the public domain as I write this blog. Monthly statistics on initial teacher training (ITT) recruitment – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) hopefully, by the time you read this the July data will be fully in the public domain. (The DfE updated their website with the July data sometime the same day that this post was published – thank you DfE.)
Now comes the key question: is this lack of transparency due to a processing fault within the DfE or is it due to not wanting the data widely known? Truly, the data on ‘offers’ so far this year is shocking.
Looking back at the period between the 2012/13 round of application for postgraduate ITT courses, and the 2021/22 round, it is clear that the total of ‘Recruited’ plus ‘Conditions Pending’ plus ‘Deferrals’ plus ‘Received and Offer’ are disastrously low in many secondary subjects this year. Leaving aside, Modern Foreign Languages, where the methodology is different this year, we see
Art, history, geography, chemistry and business studies no longer recording new records or offers and, in most cases, recording insufficient numbers to meet the expected Teacher Supply Model number. Only in history and art will there be sufficient numbers, and even in history the over-recruitment is likely to be less than in the past couple of years.
However, it is in
Religious Education
Physics
Music
English
Computing
Biology
Where the numbers of ‘offers’ look most worrying.
Jack Worth of NfER predicted earlier this year that fewer than 20% of the physics places might be filled this year in a presentation to the APPG on the Teaching Profession. His prediction now looks like it might well come about. All of the subjects in this list are hitting new lows for ‘offers’ since that 2012/13 recruitment round. The implications for recruitment of teachers, assuming the schools have the funds to recruit in 2023, look bleak.
Design and technology remain one of the few relatively better performing subjects, with more offers than last year. But, sadly, not enough to meet the required target.
With less than two months to go before courses start, and some providers closed down for the summer, there is unlikely to be a significant upturn in these numbers.
The DfE might well want to ask about conversion levels between application and offers and whether more risk might be taken with some marginal applications. The DfE will also need to ensure that they don’t de-accredit successful providers, as there is no guarantee potential applicants would choose another provider.
I do wonder whether the two contenders for Prime Minister will have anything to say about this issue, and whether anyone will even ask them?
John Howson 