Mr. Eddie Punch:

I agree with most of the sentiments expressed. There was a need to improve the original TB forum because there was definitely a governance issue around how decisions were made. It is a little early to say for sure whether this new iteration is working well. We hope it will, and it is definitely an improvement on what has gone before, but there is still the difficulty of marrying the proposals of, for example, the implementation group with the financial consequences of same. As the previous speakers indicated, there was a hold-up in the finance committee for six months or so. We are still concerned that the Department needs to respect the fact there are financial implications to every proposal.

Ultimately, I am not convinced yet from an ICSA perspective that we have got it exactly right. In other words, what are the final decisions on funding? It is all very well having proposals for actions, but the funding needs to be in place, agreed and thrashed out, and ultimately a final decision made. It is a little like when committee members talk every year about fully costed budget proposals. It is much the same in this instance. Proposals are meaningless unless they are fully costed and how we fund them is figured out. That is the key issue.

We will see how it goes in 2022. We hope the work programme of the finance committee and the implementation committee will lead to progress. We have to be able to sort it out because in the end there is a big difference of opinion on funding between ourselves as stakeholders and the Department as funders.