Ms Kate Duggan:

What the Deputy said in his opening remarks means a lot to us and our staff. There is no doubt they are working tirelessly with organisations such as Foróige and other community and voluntary organisations and youth workers, without which we could not do our work in responding. I thank the Deputy on their behalf for saying that.

I agree; we are seeing the impact of poverty, homelessness, drugs and addiction. We know they are leading to the increase in referrals and demand for our services. When I spoke yesterday at the launch of our annual report, it was around the fact that we judge a society by how it treats its children. We hold that belief. We are an agency that is proud to talk about the work we do and the progress we have made but we will be very honest and open that we do not get it right all the time. There is more we need to do and there is a responsibility on us in terms of what I explained in response to other members around having to transform our structures and how we do our business. What the chair referred to yesterday in his wider words and interviews afterwards was that we are an agency that is still immature in that we are better equipped than we were ten years ago with investment, new supply routes around apprenticeships, digital enablement and the wider understanding of individuals, Deputies and Government parties of the work we do. Through hard lessons, we know what needs to be done. Some of the frustration for our staff on the ground is that when we set about identifying our reform programme, we were clear to say it cuts across five key pillars. We need more placements, more staff, more and wider multidisciplinary staff and to look at programmes like digital enablement. We are more equipped because we know what needs to be done. We have made progress. There are still challenges. I spoke about some of the more positive outcomes we have seen. We are starting to see the tide turn through the work Ms Mannion and her team are doing. More staff are coming to us and staying.

We are getting better outcomes. We are more equipped to deliver but the two things we need are, as we said, for us to restructure to ensure we are as efficient and productive as possible and that we are getting productivity and value for money but we also need investment in statutory services and we need that interagency work.