Mr. Rob Wright:

No. At the time we did the report, there were three Deputy Secretaries General. All the assistant secretaries reported to those people and through them to the Secretary General. What I was saying there is that I think best practice is that if somebody has a line responsibility as an executive managing the financial sector, he or she should have connection to the Secretary General.

There are other models that could work. Very senior members of the Department wanted the more direct connection to their Secretary General, and we thought that was a good thing, particularly in a streamlined and focused enterprise like we have now. Given the magnitude of the financial sector restructuring, NAMA, the NTMA relationship, I think the current Secretary General will explain his structure and why that worked for him. What is vital in the core reform needed is having clear structures and using a much greater degree of information flow - communication within the Department. Again that is one of the reasons we wanted to see a more detailed written record.

I want to expand on that point a bit because I have a couple more observations on the written record. If one is going to give advice to the Minister in writing about what one thinks is important, one will articulate the rationale for it. If one does not have the capacity to give the Minister advice on the financial sector, because one does not have the bench strength to advise one on that, one is going to know it. One is not going to be comfortable signing a piece of advice that either one does not understand or one fears someone else does not understand. So it is an important discipline on rigour that grows a stronger Department.

It is not enough to say, "I had a conversation with the Minister of the day." Does the rest of the Department know that is a conversation? It should not be a personal matter. In Canada if advice has gone to the Minister, it is from the Department of Finance. People in the Department know what it is and they are all connected to it. That helps strengthen the team and understand better the directions of the Government, but they understand their role is to give their best possible advice.