Mr. Tom Costello:

We are very conscious of it because historically award of contracts was based on price alone, and that is very simple - tenders arrive in and the contract is given to the lowest tenderer. Over recent years, because of extremely low-cost tendering, there has been a move towards evaluation and awarding contracts based both on quality and cost. Nowadays with most public contracts it is not only about price. It is important that it would not be based on price only because low-cost and under-cost bidding has caused major problems on a number of projects because whether it is design teams or contractors they are not resourced to do the job and one ends up with mismanagement, which costs more at the end of the day. This balance of competence and cost is also a good international norm.

Then there is the issue addressed by Deputy McDonald, namely, the importance of selecting people who are competent in the first instance. The price is still a big part of the evaluation but there is a technical evaluation as well. The important thing is to ensure that people have the technical skills. Within the HSE there are guidelines on the selection of panels. We gave much thought to ensuring first that the people were competent. After that one relies on people to declare a conflict of interest. It is a small country, so inevitably people will at some stage have worked on a project together and may have been involved in joint ventures together. The important thing is - because there are guidelines set out as to what a conflict of interest means - we are satisfied that-----