Well, ERW does things differently, but then so does the Education Achievement Service. EAS is constituted in a different way to the Central South Consortium. What I'm interested in is not necessarily how they are constituted and organised, I'm interested in the effectiveness of that organisation to deliver for children and for teachers. ERW has got particular challenges, and we continue to work with those in ERW to address those, but increasingly, as I said, what we are seeing the regional consortia do is develop a national approach to school improvement services but deliver that on a regional basis so that there is greater consistency in terms of delivery.
Are you happy that, within the ERW area, local authorities employ their own improvement advisers, rather than doing it in the way that the others do?
We have discussed this at length with them. My preference would be for school improvement officers to be employed in the centre, and we continue to have those discussions, but what's really important to understand is that the regional consortia are not a beast of the Government; they are a beast of the local authorities that have worked together to create a school improvement service that meets their needs. So we can't impose that solution, and we continue to discuss with ERW what is the optimal way, and they continue to discuss with their constituent local authorities about how that should be organised.
Are you concerned that Neath Port Talbot have given notice that they want to withdraw from regional working?