Ms Marian Quinn:

I will respond on four issues - there are too many pilots, the inter-agency work, models of delivery and our policy framework.

There was a question about whether there are too many pilots and how to determine what works. The Centre for Effective Services, which is 50% government funded with the remainder coming from philanthropy, is tasked with extracting the findings across the range of evaluations. It has already begun to produce thematic documents that draw on the evaluations across all of the grantees from the network Noel Kelly referred to. While there is no one size fits all, we know a good deal about what works. There is a point where we need to commit to only evidence-based, proven models of delivery. That brings us to the thorny issue of not when do we stop taking on new pilots but when do we stop doing something that we have done for 20 years but which has no impact.

One of the pieces of work we delivered in west Tallaght was proven not to work. It was a pro-social behaviour programme and evidence based. It was tested through a randomised control trial and there was a very rigorous evaluation. The evaluation was the same as our Doodle Den programme, which had great outcomes. However, in our pro-social behaviour programme, children were measured on 21 outcomes. Sixteen of the outcomes were what is called flatline, where nothing changed, and three of the outcomes were moving in the wrong direction. We had to stop delivery of that programme. The people engaged in the programme - the children, parents, teachers who referred children to it and the youth workers who delivered the programme - all engaged knowing it was a test, that it was a short-term piece of work and that we would find out whether it could be integrated. They were given hard evidence that it was not working, was at best making no difference and might not be helping at all, but people said: "I do not believe you. I do not believe the research. I like what I am doing and I am working really hard at it. I am really trying to make a difference here." Therefore, believing that trying to make a difference does not necessarily mean one is making a difference is very difficult for us. One of the questions that policymakers and managers need to start grappling with is not just about how to start taking on new things, but how to stop doing the things that make no difference.

That brings me to models of delivery. Certainly, there is an issue regarding where and how services are delivered. We are beginning to learn that for some families it is necessary to do much more outreach. We cannot expect people to come to us. That raises questions about how much of our work is about developing the capacity of families to engage and also, critically, how much of the work is about helping us, as service providers, to be more effective in how we engage. It is not always the family's problem or their fault. It is not always the family that must change. Sometimes we, as service providers, managers and the people who design these structures, are the people who need to do a little re-thinking. Part of that raises questions about the skill of managers in being able to grapple with negotiating that. I was a fairly senior person in the HSE and had responsibility for many service level agreements. There was never a place where I had an engagement with the people to whom we were giving very significant amounts of funding in which we talked about whether what the service was doing was what the community needed, whether it was achieving the outcomes or whether we even knew the outcomes we were trying to achieve through the very large budget being given by the HSE. There is the issue of people who are decision-makers, particularly budget holders, having the capacity, accountability and authority to have those negotiations and to ask those questions.

With regard to inter-agency working, the children's services committees, which are established now in 16 counties and which will be a core part of how the child and family support agency works, are a critical structure.

They are tasked with ensuring integrated service planning and delivery and if we are talking about the tsar, or what we in CDI like to call scrutiny and support - and we need both - in the context of where it is held, the children's services committees offer us a good opportunity.