Ms Angela Black:

We can get back to the committee. Having a public policy remit spares the committee from giving an ad hocresponse to issues as they arise. We tend to favour the public policy batching together of trends and patterns of behaviour in order that it becomes evidence and then policy can be based on evidence that can be extrapolated countrywide. We garner that evidence from our Oyster database that is operated by the Citizens Information service and from the MABS system because we have such a broad network. MABS takes down the reason for the query and the needs resulting from it. It is best to assimilate a pattern or a trend and not to treat queries on an ad hoc basis, and then make a decision on whether there is a problem, a market failure, a social failure and so on. We then respond to that. As a result of this work, for example, we devised the personal micro-credit scheme to reduce the scourge of moneylending in the country. A pattern emerged of people coming in with problems relating to this. Similarly, we have other inputs prior to the annual budget where evidence from a large cohort in the community arrives on our desk and it is analysed and assessed systematically and not on an ad hocbasis. We will revert to the committee on this.