Dr. Ciaran Byrne:

That is a fair question. We have significant targets out to the end of the decade and the only way we will reach those targets is by scale. To get scale, one has to streamline processes and pare back the non-effective or non-value-adding parts of the process. One must also bear in mind the other side of the equation, which is that we are dispersing Exchequer money to private entities, be they contractors or, ultimately, homeowners, so we have significant Government requirements to which we must adhere.

As regards what we are looking at, in the case of the new one-stop shops, for example, we took a design-thinking approach to start from the outside in and ask how can we make this as simple as possible. We are starting to look at all of our other schemes in that context. It is an iterative process; it will not happen as a once-off. It is something one constantly trims and changes. The idea is that we adhere to all the governance requirements, of which there are several, and also make it as easy as possible for companies such as those the Deputy described - two-man-and-a-van companies or firms with eight or ten employees - that do not have the back-up and resources for all of that. We are moving a lot of the processing to an electronic format and we are streamlining many of the requirements. It is an ongoing process.