Ms Angela O'Neill:

Assessment of need remains a significant challenge for us We have said it before but it is important to be clear that children do not need a diagnosis in order to access our services. Assessment of need is a legislative requirement, but the more resources we target towards it, the less we have available to provide interventions for families, and that is what every family is looking for. The assessment is only the beginning of the process. Families really want intervention and support for their children. We are trying to strike a delicate balance. We are trying, with difficulty, to meet our legislative obligations but if we focus our resources exclusively on meeting our legislative obligations in respect of assessment of need, our clinicians will be doing nothing other than assessments. They will not be able to provide interventions for children. That is not because they are not willing to or do not have adequate funding to do it. Rather, it is because the pool of clinicians is not there. Our previous approach to assessment, where we were using the preliminary team assessment approach, got us to a point where our numbers of overdue assessments had come down significantly, but the High Court ruling last year has meant we have to go back to a process of providing full diagnostic assessments to meet our legislative obligations. Our number of overdue assessments has gone up significantly in the past year. At the end of December, our number of overdue assessments, without exceptional circumstances, was slightly more than 4,500. That figure had come way down at this time last year.

We are continuing to try to address the legislative piece. We are asking our teams to devote a certain amount of time to assessment. Equally, we are attempting to procure private assessments. The market is limited, so we are also looking at international procurement in order to try to secure huge numbers of private assessments. Our hands are tied behind our backs as regards the resources to do that.