Mr. Hubert Loftus:

He or she may say good things too. In terms of the funding side of things, we tell the ETBs what funding we are providing to them at the start of the year. We give that money to the ETBs in monthly tranches and they are required to provide monthly returns to us on the actual expenditure up to that point and their forecast expenditure for the remainder of the year. We maintain close contact with each individual ETB and monitor those projected spends to ensure they are managing within their allocations. The bulk of the spend relates to teachers' salaries. That would account for about 85% of the budget. Our teacher allocation section provides a staffing allocation to the ETBs, which triggers the associated payroll budget necessary to fulfil that allocation. The ETBs are then require to inform the Department how they are using that staffing allocation. There is engagement there. There are also quarterly staffing returns in terms of administrative staff, which are returned to the Department. We reconcile those administrative staff returns with the monthly returns. There is engagement with the ETB sector, although it is slightly different from the approach which SOLAS takes. It should still achieve the same outcomes.