Mr. Tom Woolley:

Just to add to what Mr. McCabe has said, in chapter 25 of the plan we have set out some ambitions around implementation monitoring. I should add it is going to be a focus of activity following establishment of the plan.

Focusing on monitoring in particular, we will be taking a number of steps. As Mr. McCabe mentioned, we will be doing this working with stakeholders and with various Departments across the Government. An important principle to bear in mind is that implementation and monitoring are obviously very much linked. Implementation is about applying a plan and monitoring is looking at how well that has been done, how effective it is, the results of the plan having been applied. One of the first steps on the path will be to agree what we are calling a monitoring approach, which will be a system of measures we will put in place to make sure we are looking at every aspect of the plan as it has been applied. That is process, outcome and context monitoring. We will be looking at that in partnership with the Marine Institute.

Some of the first steps we will be looking at will include establishing a baseline. In the first days of the plan, whichever policy it might be we are looking at, we will look at what is the current situation and then as time goes on we can monitor progress on a plan via process, outcome and context against that baseline. We will be establishing indicators and looking at the best available knowledge to understand the change that has come about as a result of the plan being applied. As a result, we would like to establish a semi-regular reporting process, potentially yearly, depending on what is agreed with the stakeholders involved. Through that process we will develop a good baseline for making recommendations as and when it is time to update the NMPF.

I hope that gives a short snapshot to our approach to monitoring and what we have planned. It will be an evolving field. Every policy area will vary in terms of how much confidence we can put behind understanding and being able to monitor the situation. Where we can, we will take advantage of existing monitoring programmes. I am happy to provide more detail if Senator Fitzpatrick has further questions.