Mr. Jim Breslin:

We have tried to approach the task from two levels. One is through the child and family agency, which will have operational responsibility for a huge number of services, and we must also get the strategic approach to the services correct. As the Bill has gone through the Houses, committee members will be familiar with all of the steps. It will start in the new year with the Minister's articulation of a performance framework in which she will set out what the Government considers to be the priorities over the coming three years. The agency and its board will develop a detailed corporate plan which will give a strategic perspective for the agency over the three years.

In her opening statement the Minister signalled that, given the mandate of the Department, we have been anxious to work at a level beyond this. Early next year we will complete the national children and young people policy framework, which will be about gathering all of the Departments at the same table to address in a more joined-up way issues presenting for children. We see this as a further opportunity to articulate the benefits of early intervention; to try to push this approach with the big Departments, which already have many resources in the field; and to build a case for where we should target further investment over the five-year strategy.

The Department was established in the teeth of recession in 2011 and we all hope that as we move through this period things will improve. The obligation on us at this stage is to put in place this type of collaborative process and structures and provide evidence on what can be achieved, so if investment is put in place it will be done in the right way and will be effective. If this work is not done processes will not change in order to try to make best use of available resources. We have been relatively successful in a very difficult situation with regard to resources and we can see this in area-based childhood, ABC, programme areas. Part of our thinking is to get ourselves organised effectively in collaboration with others so that in due course we can further build on it with additional resources.