Mr. Robert Watt:

In the past we used to prepare budgets on an annual basis and then we moved to a multiannual approach. As part of setting out three-year envelopes we decided it was appropriate to have a spending review, which stands back periodically and looks at the challenges facing the State, to look at progress, and to look at what is happening to key indicators like unemployment, the number of social welfare recipients, demands in the health system, the demographics in education and so on. So it is to stand back and set out, and to have a process then of engaging across the system both at a technical level and obviously at a political level in terms of what the demands are and what the allocations would be over a period ahead. The whole purpose of the review is for us to stand back from the annual hurly burly of Estimates, budgets and all that, and have much more of a strategic approach.