Sceptics suggested that, as it was staffed predominantly by people who worked in the NHS, it would not be sufficiently critical when care did not comeuptoscratch.
David Blunkett, the education secretary, has horrified local education authorities by saying that he is prepared to allow private firms to take over their work if they fail tocomeuptoscratch.
At the same time Donetsk, Lviv and Kharkiv were given a final 30 November deadline to meet the standards required and Kiev was told it would lose the final itself if it didn't comeuptoscratch by the end of next month.