Mr. Tony Smyth:

The role of the group was to help inform the development of the programme. We must remember that at this stage we had a policy which stated we would minimise flood risk to property throughout the country. We had to turn this into a process by which it could be delivered, writing technical specifications and a process to deliver it, informing ourselves from a flood risk management point of view and a wider government point of view of other things that might be useful to include. The role of the interdepartmental co-ordination group was to inform the process. Once we got that piece done, the next piece was to get involved in the technical delivery of what we now call CFRAM, but which was not in existence at that point. It came from and was informed by this committee.

CFRAM was then developed into a process which was tendered to the private sector for delivery. At a certain point, the interdepartmental committee had no further work to do until the outputs came from CFRAM mapping. We reconvened the groups at what I believe was an appropriate time. It was not formally suspended or agreed with the group that it would not meet until it received certain information back on CFRAM. I put my hands up on this. It is correct the formality was not there. Neither are there terms of reference, and the Comptroller and Auditor General is correct, but the role of the group is stated. We did not sit as a group and state we would adopt terms of reference. I accept we did not set formal terms of reference, but the role was there and we got on with doing the job as best we could.