Mr. Rob Wright:

The lack of a core capacity has an impact on everything. I would not say it led to this undue influence; it just meant people in the Department were not perhaps as fully engaged in that area as they should have been. My evidence would say they were not. It was not just that, however. What I saw more surprised me was that there was not as active an engagement with the Financial Regulator as I would have expected on some key elements. Going back to our focus on written advice, it is very hard to sign a piece of advice if one is not comfortable it is correct. One needs to be sure one has the right people helping one prepare that advice. I do not think there was the capacity for people in the Department to engage actively, so they did not do so.