Mr. Robert Watt:

Yes. We do not employ teachers, the schools do. The school would organise the competition and offer the post. We get a lot of complaints from managers across the system who have staff shortages and want people to come in and they complain about the time it takes. My view is that we need to get the best people who will be with us for a long time doing very important work. I understand the frustration. The Deputy has probably received representations - the Public Appointments Service also gets them - from people who are looking for work and want to join the service and we are slow at taking them off panels. I can understand the frustration but we need to be sure we are getting the best people in because they could be with us for a long time. If somebody is coming into a private sector organisation, it could take a long time to give notice and manage that process so I am not sure how out of kilter we are but we could look at it and we might come back to the committee with some data on how long it takes.