Mr. Nick Henderson:

We would use the existing budget, which is large. It may be, and I would suspect, that the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government would want nothing to do with this issue. Therefore it may be necessary to take it away from the Reception and Integration Agency and from the Department of Justice and Equality and create a new, independent entity. Alternatively, the Government might create a new body and attach it to the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government but ring-fence the funding so there would be no accusations or suspicion that it was taking anything away from the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government's resources or those of the local authorities.

On maintaining oversight, we believe that could be done relatively easily. We are about to produce a piece of work around the public sector duty. We believe the State can maintain and require of private operators of current and future direct provision centres that they embed in human rights protection via the public sector duty which is contained in the Human Rights and Equality Act. The idea would be that these approved housing bodies are experts in housing and in providing care and assistance to vulnerable people. We are already guaranteeing oversight as these organisations would already have a board, a strategic plan and a clear mission. We would be embedding good quality through those mechanisms.