Ms Laverne McGuinness:

The first port of call is our service level arrangement, which is a very expansive and comprehensive document. That sets out the range of services to be provided, and the money. That is where the ongoing engagement takes place with the manager and the chief executive of the hospital with regard to the money given for the services provided. Every month there is a formal meeting with the hospitals – it might happen more frequently in some organisations – regarding the delivery relative to the amount of money.

That is ongoing at a very senior level, right up to ourselves, with the national director, the chief financial officer and myself in attendance at those meetings.

The compliance statement is new and we were seeking to put in place best practice from a governance perspective. This is an arrangement with the chairman of the board and another director whereby, as governors, they sign off as an indication that they have reviewed everything in the service level arrangement and they are in compliance with eight of the key issues set out in the service level arrangements. There are two pages dealing with procurement, finance, governance, risk management, remuneration, taxation and capital assets. The declaration is that everything has been checked - they are the governors of the board - and everything is in compliance. If they are not in some areas - as one might expect, because it is a retrospective issue at this time - the declaration is that there is a plan to come into compliance.

We have also done something which has not been set out before, which is to indicate what is good practice with regard to board membership and the various committees that should be set up. This is with a view to putting in place and harnessing a relationship with board chairpersons. We meet those twice a year and the director general meets them on one occasion as well. We have already met them in June. As part of that we have an information exchange so that the parties are aware of what is ongoing with respect to best practice. We engaged a speaker the last day and we reflected on the events with regard to the Central Remedial Clinic, CRC, the lessons learned and how to put in place a framework for shared learning in that regard.