Many foundations like to use quality-of-life indicators to guide their philanthropy.

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The rest of the UK has had one of the best years on record for bathing water quality in the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) guide, but the number of Scottish beaches rated as excellent dipped by 5% from the 2011 figure.

BBC: Good Beach Guide rankings washed out by Scottish downpours

So you should not rely on it, thinking it entirely accurate as a guide to how lenders will perceive your credit quality.

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The main beach in Weston-super-Mare received a pass in the MCS Good Beach Guide study, which focuses entirely on water quality standards and the risk of sewage pollution.

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Founded in 1898, the firm, with its famous Readers Guide to Periodical Literature and other high-quality library indexes, long occupied a comfortable niche: collecting, analyzing and cross-referencing published works.

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If the Prosperous Suburbia Primary School has 60% of pupils receiving private tuition while the Deprived Inner City Primary has none, then how much of a guide are the league tables to the relative quality of teaching at these two schools?

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The guide's league table is compiled using a number of criteria including student satisfaction, research quality, academic peer review, entrance qualifications held by new students, degree results achieved, drop-out rates and graduate employment levels.

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