Mr. William Beausang:

The financial management shared services, FMSS, will happen. The decision needs to be made on whether we continue with our current basis of reporting, taking on board the innovations and improvements that have been introduced in recent years and whether there is a move to full accrual accounting. This year, with the assistance of funding from the European Commission's structural reform support programme and OECD expertise, we will undertake a very detailed due diligence on our fiscal reporting to map the information we provide against international best practice. This is with a view to identifying the gaps so that when we move forward on FMSS, we will be in a position to assess how we can best ensure that when decisions are made on how future financial reporting will be carried out, it is based on international best practice and standards.

From a policy perspective, rather than the work done on moving to the single financial system, a very active work programme is planned for 2018. Responding to Deputy Burke's comments, that demonstrates that the Department and our colleagues in the Department of Finance are very committed to continuing to engage with the transparency agenda, as we have done in the past.