I read an article in the Economist way back that said that the old British Gas engineers were good (back when they were good...) because of all the time they spent back at the depot, chatting about boilers and drinking tea and basically training each other. When it got privatised, of course this was inefficient so they were all sent out in their vans to sit in laybys and drink tea and read the Sun. No problem for a few years, while the old engineers were still with the company, but as the new ones came on stream then the old informal training started to be missed... I can't remember the exact details, but basically if a magazine like the Economist says there's value to be had in staff sitting around sharing information and cups of tea, perhaps the LAS could be persuaded...