Mr. Kevin Cardiff:

I will take the questions in reverse order. As to whether there is nothing to worry about, credit must be given to the European Commission for managing to reduce the level of errors in transactions. However, when we do special reports - effectiveness reports - as to whether a programme has delivered what it was supposed to, we find many problems. These are human systems which are about delivering money to people and so forth. It is like any governmental or private sector entity in that it will not get 100% value for every penny spent. However, we still find significant areas where the objectives of programmes are not being fully met. Sometimes that is a question of programmes being overly complex. As such, we tend to recommend quite often that something needs to be simpler. For example, if one has a small business, farm, charity or NGO which one expects to deliver something, one reduces the value if one makes the process very complicated. If applicants spend half their time on administration, it will reduce effectiveness relative to cost. It is also the case that if people do not understand the rules and what is to be delivered, it makes things more difficult.

At government level, individual member states do not specify very well in many areas what they want to get out of each spending programme. The European Commission often does not specify very well what it wants. Sometimes there is an implicit agreement that everybody wants money to go to a particular sector. What we audit against are the objectives laid down for a programme. We discussed the young farmers' scheme this morning, for example. I do not object to younger farmers getting an additional payment, but the scheme has not been demonstrably delivering more young farmers on farms. As auditors, we ask, if the objective is not just to pass on money but to change behaviour, whether that has been delivered. Often, we find it has not. As the Commission and European system generally reduces the amount of problems in terms of technical errors, waste, fraud and so on, we have more time to think about how well programmes perform in delivering their objectives. It is hard to point to particular areas, as this happens almost everywhere. That is why we produced 25 to 30 special reports on effectiveness this year. As the committee has individual areas of interest, it might find some of those reports useful. We can happily be in touch and tell the members what we found in particular areas if that is useful. That is the next area - how well programmes perform.

As to when the UK leaves, the one thing that is clear is that the system will be different. For Ireland, and leaving my auditor's hat off for a moment, this is a potentially major game changer. We know that. I am not going to say anything people do not know because that much is evident. The real question for a committee like this is not just whether the major policy work is being done, as we see the big negotiations and statements, which are really important. However, there is a huge amount of purely technical work that has to be done to avoid errors and the problems that can arise where a business has a Northern Ireland and a Southern Ireland operation, for example. We have to avoid situations where, for purely technical reasons, such a business cannot pass its raw materials back and forth without a great deal of customs' administration. We have to avoid the danger that our goods in transit across the UK might move more slowly than they do now. We have to avoid all of the potential pitfalls of failing to have all the rules checked for Brexit impact - Brexit-proofed, in other words - and then adjusted as necessary. The danger is that dealing with the big questions is so difficult and important that it sucks time away from the other important job, which is to look at all of these technical issues one at a time across the whole system. I do not audit in Ireland so I do not know how well advanced the Irish system is, but I would have thought this is the crucial thing, not just that big questions are addressed, but that these smaller but very important technical matters are dealt with on time. Whether that is possible, I do not know. However, one of the issues the bigger discussions are covering is whether there should be transitions and so forth.

We have not done much early work on Brexit because we do not yet have anything to audit. We do not know what the deal is or what arrangement will be put in place. An auditor typically goes in and asks how such and such stands against the rules and expectations. So far, it is not clear what the rules and expectations will be. When it comes to calculating the bill, however, some of that will be done on the basis of what the audited accounts say and we are the auditors. As such, we will be paying a great deal of attention to ensuring the accounts are right for that purpose so that people can rely on our work.