Mr. Fred McBride:

This concerns the issue of consistency of practice and policy implementation. Having being in this position for nearly five years, there are cultural and behavioural issues which need to be addressed. It was not that long ago that these services were located within 32 health boards. They all had their own policy frameworks, processes and procedures. We are trying our very best to break out of that. The Government has created a national agency for child protection and welfare. We are doing our damnedest to ensure that people are doing things in a consistent way. Up to now, that has been a struggle at times. We are putting in local mechanisms and oversight groups to ensure that when a policy lands, it is implemented consistently. We are also trying to keep our policies to a minimum. At one stage, we were producing policies for far too many issues. Part of the reason people might not have implementing them was because there was just too many. We are trying to reduce them and keep them to a minimum. When we do issue a policy, it will come with a clear implementation plan and mandate which people will follow. That will be overseen by a local governance group.