Mr. Tom Boland:

What we are doing in that space is not going nearly as far as the Chair is suggesting, with us doing individual audits of aspects of institutions. There are three things that are relevant here. First, we have for some time been doing what we call a trend analysis of expenditure across the sector, which gives us a sense of the different levels of expenditure in the different institutions, to see how they compare. In response to more recent difficulties, we now also require the institutions to share generic issues that arise in their internal audit, whether that they are not adequately dealing with procurement or that there are issues with travelling and subsistence. We are, therefore, requiring them to inform the sector as a whole of issues that arise in their internal audit so that a degree of learning is going on. Very importantly, we have not done it yet, but we have signalled to the sector our intention to conduct, in co-ordination with the Department, what we describe as rolling reviews of various aspects of expenditure in the sector. We have not officially informed the institutions of this, but I would like to see procurement as one of the first areas where we would do a system review of what is happening in the area and get professional people to take a system view of what is happening, in addition to the various levels of accountability.