With the way the NHS employs staff and the AfC bandings work, employing someone as a band 4 could mean that they can never progress to a band 5 or 6 unless a specific post becomes available at that level. This makes the system even more of a "dead men's shoes" situation.
Employing someone at a percentage of the band for the post they are intended to one day fill using the Annexes of the AfC pay scheme is therefore the most sensible (possibly the ONLY) way of ensuring that you get trainees, and are able to keep them once they are sufficiently trained to be promoted to the full grade for the post. Otherwise, they will have to move elsewhere to get the post they were training for.
If you ask for a band 4, it is a hell of a job trying to get them promoted to the next band up later on - it seems to be positively banned!
