It's all in the details.
When Ruth Kelly stood up in the Commons to make her "do or die" statement on sex offenders in schools last week, the eyes of the world were watching.
Unfortunately, what those eyes couldn't see - until long after she'd finished speaking at any rate - was the text she was reading from.
While we heard the words and caught something of those finely diced numbers, what we missed was the punctuation.
If it seems like a minor issue, the effect was far from small.
It meant that Ms Kelly was able to complete her statement without ever saying how many individuals on the sex offenders register the Government had cleared to work in schools.
After confirming that ministers had personally approved 10 people on the sex offenders register to work with children since 1997, this is what she said:
"I have asked officials to look at the similar decisions by officials; and decisions by ministers and officials on cases since 1997 where the relevant offence were committed prior to the sex offenders register. This has identified a further 46 cases."
Notice that little semicolon: "similar decisions by officials; and decisions by ministers and officials..."
When she read it aloud, you couldn't tell that the punctuation was there, so the words all ran into each other. This left many people wrongly convinced that all these "further 46 cases" referred to ancient history - offences committed before the sex offenders register was introduced.
In fact, that semicolon makes clear that some of these 46 involved people who were on the register (the "similar decisions by officials" - similar to those 10 decisions taken by ministers).
So there were more than 10 cases where the Department for Education decided not to bar people on the sex offenders register from working in schools.
What Ms Kelly didn't tell us is just how many more, which means we don't know just how effective - or otherwise - the system and the register have been.
You could argue that this is all just so much picking nits, especially when we have a confirmed overall figure of 88 people - both on and pre-dating the register - who have not been barred for one reason or another (although this is not a figure Ms Kelly has ever volunteered, her officials have confirmed it is accurate).
But Ms Kelly also told the House that there were 210 individuals on List 99 - the Government's "blacklist" of adults barred from working with children - who had not been given full bans.
They are, then, still allowed to work with children in certain circumstances. But since List 99 also contains people who are guilty of fraud and other crimes, how many of this group of 210 were sex offenders?
If the Government can identify 210 people with partial bans, it must know what offences led to those bans.
On both issues (how many on the sex offenders register and how many sex offenders on List 99 have not been barred) we have asked the Department for Education repeatedly for clear figures. But they still won't say.
Just before she silently delivered that semicolon, Ms Kelly told MPs how frank and open she was being: "I have been determined to go further to provide a more complete analysis."
She did go "further", yes. But the analysis is either "complete" or it isn't. Even the minister, it seems, knows she's keeping something back.
