My guest today is Ricky Bland, whose critical report on how service companies approach training has just been published. Hello, Ricky. Hello. Yes I looked at the provision of training by employers in this country, and found that most have a 'winner-takes-all' approach to training. Despite low levels of basic skills, companies spend most of their training budgets on their most qualified employees, particularly managers. This simply doesn't result in the quality we need. But does this really matter? Yes, because even though there have been enormous efforts to make training available to everyone, the under-development of the workforce in this country is a major factor in our poor productivity. It's also true that the time people spend being trained is below the average of the world's industrialised economies. Training is particularly bad in the fast-food industry, isn't it?