Mr. Peter Tyndall:

With the serial offenders, it is difficult. The bodies on top of my list are the ones that have the most dealings with members of the public. The Department of Social Protection is always high on the list but we have very good relations with it. In general, if we identify something and have a robust debate on whether it needs to be done, when we have persuaded the Department that it needs to be done, it usually just gets on with it and does it. I need to be clear that the Department tops the list not through any deficiencies on its part but simply because of volumes.

The odd issue tends to arise. Let me mention one that affects several agencies. Sometimes bodies make payments in error, and it is their error. It can be a student grant body or a body dealing with welfare benefits. Our general view is that if somebody gives false information and consequently gets a benefit to which he is not entitled, the State should claim that back because the money is being received fraudulently. However, circumstances are different where people receive money through no fault of their own, as with somebody who moves away from home and is paying rent during the second year of a course only to find he or she is not only not entitled to the grant he or she applied for and got but also that he or she must repay it, with the consequence that he or she has no money to pursue his or her course of study. It is through no fault of his own. We take a view that this is not good administration. At times, if we cannot resolve the various outstanding issues, they may be ones we bring to the committee. We take the same view where people are asked to repay benefits many years after the event. The money is taken from their pension when they eventually qualify for one. We get cases like that. These are systemic issues. They are not huge areas.

With local authorities, the volume is simply associated with the fact that they are the housing authorities and are dealing with planning. They are in many contentious areas. There is not a pattern that I can identify. When there is, we meet the County and City Management Association. Generally, it is been possible to agree to collective solutions. One or two councils manage to be outliers. When everybody else agrees and implements a solution, they manage to find ways of interpreting the agreement in a way that was not intended. Generally, however, it is not so bad.

We generally do not feel the need to draw matters to members' attention to it because, by and large, people are pretty good at doing what they say they will do.