Ms Julie O'Neill:

I probably have a track record of being prepared to stand up to Ministers when necessary but I would always do it in a respectful way in the same way I treat this committee with the deepest of respect. We are a democracy. We appoint Governments and Governments appoint Ministers to lead us and take decisions. I would see my role in this instance as being to give the best quality and most objective advice we come up with and to feed that into the process but ultimately, the policy decisions which are made on foot of that advice - which in our case is in the public domain because we publish reports and do not just privately, behind the scenes, give advice to Ministers - are a call for the Minister of the day. However, it is a valid question. Sometimes things will come up where we will produce a report which may be slightly out of kilter with the direction the Government chooses to go but so be it.