Mr. Mick Clifford:

From my observation, a number of State agencies have adopted the position that best practice when it comes to protected disclosure is to farm them out to consultants from investigative bodies to do it. From what I can see, though, that has done nothing to shorten the time of investigations. In terms of perception, an issue that could arise when the senior management of a State agency retains a particular agency to an investigation is the relationship between the two. You can have an unspoken understanding. For example, there could be a situation whereby an investigative body will be aware that if it goes down a particular route, its services might not be retained the next time someone is employed to do such an investigation. It is difficult to get somebody who is completely removed or hands off from the management of a particular arm against whom a protected disclosure is made or within whose body a protected disclosure was made. That is very difficult. Obviously, the ideal thing would be to be as hands off or as removed as possible from the senior management of an agency or arm of State. Most of my experience is with public bodies.