"No, the framework of testing has hugely improved standards over the past 20 years.
During Bing's tenure he improved standards of performance and production and was especially praised for his attention to scenic design.
During an 18-year tenure, Fricke improved standards and discipline and replaced more than a third of the orchestra.
We believe there would be more effective accountability for schools, and improved standards, if inspections were carried out by local authorities with Ofsted keeping a check on them".
The professionalism of rugby union has improved standards in many ways but, aside from marrying into the royal family, it has not necessarily encouraged innovative post-career moves.
Decades of economic and political engagement with the West and improved standards of living were supposed to liberalize dictatorships and provide leverage against them.
Nurses who used the CCC found the tool improved standards for care and patient involvement in care.
Civilians, rather than plutocrats, controlled corporate America, and that relationship improved standards of living and usually kept the worst of corporate abuses in check.
Councils have an obligation to see that it has improved standards, and if it is judged that it hasn't then the councils will be held responsible and made to pay back the money".
Abdullah al-Khulaifi, labour minister, told me he had had nightmares as a result and felt unfairly criticised, but was still keen to highlight positive reforms – improved standards of workers' accommodation, wage-payment methods and the enforcement of other rules.
Britain was lagging behind other countries in key areas such as cancer outcomes and the idea that ploughing money into the NHS improved standards had been "tested to destruction", according to Liam Fox.
