Mr. Kevin Cardiff:

Well, I commissioned the Wright report; I know formally the Minister did, but it was pretty much entirely my initiative, which he was very willing to take up. I wanted a better Department of Finance, and I didn't want what happened to be repeated. And, you know, that being the case, I'm hardly likely to say, "Well, I disagree with the criticism." I wanted criticism, because without criticism, you can't have improvement, so yes, I agree with him. I don't think yet that our system is developed in the way that it could be, that would allow us to do what he says. For example, he wants a more open and expansive Department of Finance which would ... indeed where the Secretary General would be making his own economic statement on a yearly basis. I haven't yet had the, sort of, understanding that the political system would run with that, even while I was still in the Department. But what the political system does accept and has run with is a more public Department where, for example, individual economists are making ... doing papers and so forth in public, where, I notice my sort of half successor, Robert Watt, who took over half of my old bailiwick, is much more regularly in the public than I would have been. Maybe it was ... I suppose when I was Secretary General there wasn't much choice ... much time to be doing speeches but ... so there is movement in that direction, but the political system, even now I'd say, would resent a sort of a public internal opposition, that on the one hand was working with it, and on the next day was making a statement that said, in public, you know, "By the way, the Minister didn't do this when I told him."