Mr. Robert Watt:

Some of these allowances were first paid as far back as the 1950s, and others date from the 1970s and 1980s. An allowance was put in place when the associated duty would have been new or attached to a position of some responsibility, or, as Ms Buckley said, when it involved looking after a particular area. We are trying to tidy it all up.

The key issue for the committee is that there is a plan to rationalise the structures to have a more modern pay approach. The amounts of money are modest and the numbers of people who claim the allowances comprise a small proportion of the overall number. However, we accept that we need to finish the exercise and work towards a more modern system that would, in addition to addressing the allowance issue, define clearly the duties and responsibilities in a way that suits business needs of today as opposed to those of the 1980s or another period.