Mr. Paul Quinn:

I will not go through the rest of the report and I will take it as read for the meeting. I will highlight a couple of points.

Circular 10/14 was a key policy instrument that we launched in April 2014. It is critically important in terms of implementation across contracting authorities because it opens up and sets the rules for them as they address the marketplace and it is SME friendly. We did that in consultation with the industry groups, including ISME, SFA, IBEC and CIF. We consulted broadly with them before implementing the circular.

I will talk further about social clauses during the meeting but considerable work is under way. The Minister launched a group in 2014 to establish social clauses policy work and it has identified 11 projects to date to further test and develop social clauses in contracts. We also mentioned in the report positive developments on the schools bundle programme where existing social clauses are being rolled out. There have been positive and welcome developments in that context.

We can discuss PPPs and concessions during the question and answer session.

We mentioned the community and voluntary sector. This office has met The Wheel, in particular, as a key representative of that sector. We had a positive meeting in the context of understanding where the sector is coming from and helping people to understand the new changes being brought to bear by the directives and legislation introduced at EU level.

Public procurement is still incredibly important to the State and the taxpayer in terms of the value for money it can generate. We are bringing new structures to bear in this respect but we are at an early stage. The OGP is still only building its capability and capacity; 2015 will be a key year of transition. It is important during the transition, though, that we listen to all our stakeholders. We have good mechanisms for that and we have put in place good structures. I welcome further discussion with the committee.