My wife who is South African and has English as her first language has sat, and failed, this test twice. The test centre in Manchester is (or was) in Cheetham Hill and run by people of Asian descent. Curiously both times she sat the test there were people who appeared to have no grasp of English (but could chat to the adjudicators quite openly in a different language) who passed the test with no problems. Guess they must have spent their time on the plane over here studying really hard.