Mr. Robert Watt:

-----situation arising would not be allowed now, the situation arising from the enactment of that legislation. That has been addressed. Whether it was not legally the case, it seems inappropriate to have such an order and would not be good practice.

With respect to the third level institution, table 3.9 of the reports shows compliance with good practice. Where the body fell down was not informing the Department. We have made that clear within the code and within the guidance we have issued. The fact that the Comptroller and Auditor General has highlighted these issues will now have an impact across the system so people will appreciate it. Also, with respect to discretionary severance payments, and this relates to those, we are going to build on the proposal, which is the New Zealand model, that is set out in the report, and draft a circular, which will remind the system again about discretionary severance. The scheme we eventually decide upon will be very similar to what is set out in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report. It covers these elements. We hope those different elements that we have moved on since the report will help to reduce the risk of that happening again, but nobody sitting in this position can ever tell a Deputy that this will not happen again. Nobody can ever give that assurance because we know about the system; we know that mistakes are made and that there can be governance failures, but we are hopeful that in response to the report, which we will be working on, we will definitely reduce the likelihood of that happening again. We will continue to monitor and continue to work with colleagues across the system to ensure that the guidelines set out are met.