Mr. Peter Cleere:

One of the best things we do is rotate our meetings, with one taking place in Carlow and the next in Kilkenny. That is working very well and allows us to have a footprint in each location. We have a very robust board of 21 members, including public representatives, delegates from nominated bodies, parent representatives and so on. We are fortunate to have an open and honest engagement between members and a very proactive board. In addition, the executive is very forthcoming with information in response to questions by board members, with that information made available either as the meeting is progressing, when either the director of schools or the director of further education is speaking or under any other business at the end of the meeting. This provision of information is always an item on the agenda, which ensures the executive is held to account on a regular basis. We are lucky in Kilkenny and Carlow to have a very strong team. Members of the finance and audit committees receive great training internally and through ETBI. Something that works particularly well for us is that if we are meeting in November, say, we will hold our finance committee meeting the week before. As well as being best practice, this means we end up meeting six times per year by default.