Mr. Gerry Fitzpatrick:

There is certainly a perception, I think, and there are people who are young - and we have recently qualified graduates in our number - but I'd say about anybody who is in that level, there's people with honour degrees in ... from third level, they're studying for exams of an institute. They're spending, in terms of a training timetable within our firm, four to five weeks a year on simply that training and then plus another two to three months training for the exams. So there's quite a lot of infrastructure, even for those who have a small ... number ... of experience. My issue obviously is that, as the person who signs an opinion with 50 people doing the work, how do I know, I think this was your question, that they are all ... they all get the message? And what we do ... and probably at the risk of further boring you in relation to other processes, but we have this process driven by an automated audit tool which still looks at this risks and material misstatement.

And I set out what those risks I believe are. And the techniques then you try and use to try and get my scepticism across to those doing the work is to ensure that you're following a process that actually addresses those risks. And we benefit from that as being what we call, in our audit methodology, the tools and techniques people use are not just the ones I decide on, but people right around our firm, nearly 200,000 people globally, not all are doing banking work, but those who are in banking work are contributing to a model and a database of risks and controls, so I feel that group of people are informed. It does fall on me, I'm the person who makes the decisions to make sure that those risks are correct and for me and my team to review the work of anybody who has less experience. And every piece of work will be reviewed by another person, including my own, and, therefore, I'm subject in that scepticism to an independent partner who is not directly involved in the audit process looking through my opinion, my key working papers, my audit summary document, and saying, "Is there a risk, Gerry, that you're being ... that you have a bias here, or that you're subject to this confirmation bias, which is information that passes you is the one that you think is the most relevant at the time?" So, your initial point was, was there a perception? There possibly is a perception. I'd say there's superb, really bright people working for us, who have lots more skills in some areas than I have. They are put together in a model and we train them and it's a value-training process, and the amount of specialist time and expertise that goes into it, drawing from the best of our organisation is put into it. Ultimately, these things aren't all processed though, and I think ... the earlier comments which ... there are judgments around big issues, and that requires people of experience to apply to, and that's where I certainly focus my efforts in an audit process.