‘UK school leavers a dismal failure’: conclusion of a survey of employer opinion on communicative and related skills. Most of the text (unadapted) of a British press release sent to ET in Nov 05 by the Forum of Private Business (FPB), a pressure group formed in 1977 that represents c.25,000 UK-based small and medium businesses (SMEs) employing over half a million people, for which it lobbies in both the United Kingdom and the European Union at large. The FPB claims ‘a track record of positively affecting [EU] legislation prior to its introduction in the UK’ (and elsewhere in the EU).