Mr. Pat McLoughlin:

We bring groups before us, the meetings are extensively minuted and published on our website. This committee could bring all parties before it when we produce reports. For instance, we produced a report on the private rented sector in October which showed low levels of inspection, compliance and prosecution. We would not have been able to see the degree to which units were grossly inhabited but many of the issues that have been raised recently were raised in our report. Our board would be very happy if, when we do a thematic study or report, we would be called before the committee because it allows us to bring more light to issues.

Local authorities in themselves are not accountable to us but they have greatly co-operated with us in the work and programmes which we undertake. Deputy O'Dowd referred to resourcing. That is on the agenda of our next meeting. We have only two staff - having had three at our maximum - but we have been able to rely on the County and City Management Association and staff of local authorities. For instance, in our work on how local authorities are dealing with their customer-facing function, we bring in the staff who do that, see what is going on, look at best practice and see if we can work on that. We will examine our resources at our December meeting.