Mr. Gerry Murphy:

I will start and then Ms Graham, who works very closely with it, will pick up. There are two strands to the work that is ongoing at the moment. First of all, there was a value for money review of the rural transport programme. It was found that there were excessive administration costs and a proliferation of groups - notwithstanding the great commitment of the groups - and that these costs need to be trimmed because there are cuts going into that rural transport system each year, like everywhere else. What we are looking at is how we can rationalise the administration of the programme, keep the services and keep the local knowledge. We have made some recommendations to the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, which is considering them and discussing them with the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. The idea of aligning with local government is partly at the heart of it, with local government doing more in this area.

The second strand is to consider how we can integrate services. One may have rural transport buses and one may also have buses or minibuses providing health care attendance or hospital attendance. Ms Graham is chairing a national group on that and she might tell the Deputy the progress to date.