Mr. Brian Patterson:

I know you've been in to this with some of the previous witnesses. There was a perceived need to keep a lid on costs, first of all, and there are reasons for that which I can go into if you wish ... perceived need to keep a lid on costs. The process for getting approval for additional staff was quite convoluted and lengthy. It had to go through a whole lot of filters so that by the time it came to the authority, it probably had been watered down quite a lot, and the authority's budget and remuneration committee would have interrogated the executive quite strongly on the need, as they should have done, on the need for additional staff. The fact that we levied 50% of our costs on the industry was also a factor and industry watchdogs were forever waiting to pounce on us for increases in resources which would impact the size of the levy. And then, to crown it all, even when approval had been given for extra staff, we were unable to recruit them and so the ... the members of the authority and the budget and remuneration committee were probably entitled to say, "Why are you looking for extra staff when you haven't even filled the posts that we gave you six months ago or a year ago?"