Mr. Toby Wolfe:

I will add a couple of points to that. We are not anticipating that the budget cap will be hit. We have got our best estimates in terms of the likely level of demand and we believe the budget will be sufficient. There is uncertainty in introducing a new scheme such as this one. It is a radical departure from the way previous schemes were run, so there is some uncertainty in terms of the level of demand. The budget cap is a protection for the public finances in case demand far exceeds what we had expected. There will be a limit placed on the cost of the scheme but we will closely monitor the levels of demand. As soon as the scheme is up and running, we will, in the second and third years, get a much better picture of the way demand is developing.

The Department has also joined the ESRI's SWITCH research programme and the affordable childcare scheme is being built into the SWITCH model at present. Work began on that last summer and it is ongoing this year. The work programme with the SWITCH model includes estimations of labour market response to this scheme. We are fairly confident that we will not hit the budget cap this year and we will get increasingly confident as time goes by. It is in place as a protection for the public finances and in the event that the budget cap gets hit, we will be looking carefully at the way prioritisation of cases and the queuing system works at that point, but we believe it is unlikely.