Professor Brian Norton:

In relation to the part about DIT, I was concerned, although, as I said earlier, there were two impressions given. One is that we lost two amounts of money. There was a budget for this. We lost one amount of money which was budgeted for but that subsequently was spent on another contract. There was one amount of money lost. Secondly, certainly the inquiry that was done, which identified that there were procedures that should be tightened up, and they have been, but that does not mean that any of those items identified were not properly budgeted for or properly procured or indeed that we knew about them. That impression was given which impinges on the reputation of the institute and a lot of hard work by a lot of colleagues in a time when we had an employment control framework and a moratorium on appointments, particularly at administrative level, which meant a huge reduction in administrative staff who were working very hard. Speaking personally, the loss of Swets was heartbreaking.