just curious on views and experience around the following - I'm sure Shoe Polisher will have a view. I've been in a few situations where a practice was being scaled up rapidly and the needs of the practice lead in achieving a 'balanced portfolio' of consultants was potentially in conflict with the rights of any given individual applicant. Case 1 was where the practice already had quite a few ex-PAers (who were fine btw, let's not go off on one); there were lots more PA applicants in the pipeline who were well qualified, but the view was that he didn't want a practice with 75% ex-PAers, so they were screened out. Case 2 and more near the knuckle - similar effect with long-term-UK-eligible Indian subcontinent resource; applications from them outnumbered all others by about 10 to one, but again the subtext was that you wouldn't want an almost entirely Indian practice no matter how well qualified. Interesting ethical, commercial and legal situations, eh?