Mr. Robert Watt:

Yes. This gets to the complexity of the review in terms of the examination of 1,100 allowances, some of which date back to the 1920s and others which were added to for a variety of different reasons, including changes in technology, IR situations, the need to deal with a particular group of workers and so on. We tried to put some structure on this in the context of justifying retention of the allowances for those currently in receipt of them, suspension of them for new entrants, abolition for all groups or amendment of them. Some of the allowances may remain but will be amended. For example, we considered issues such as whether as an employer we are getting value for money in terms of on-call payments. We propose to abolish, modify and negotiate other allowances.

We have tried, based on the criteria as set out by the Deputy, to put the allowances into different categories and to rationalise them in that way.