Professor John McHale:

I think it should have the capacity to do its own costings and that does require resources. Also one does not want to have too much duplication so that a lot of costing goes on within Departments and one would want to build on that. In many cases it may be that one is validating the costings of Government. I know the Deputy will be talking to the head of the Office for Budget Responsibility in the United Kingdom who does a lot of this work, but do not underestimate the level of expertise and the resources required to do this well. I worry as I look at the model that it looks like it will be resourced at quite a low level even when it reaches steady state. I suppose the message, as we look at the international experience, is to recognise how resource intensive costing and associated budgetary analysis is.