Mr. Jim Gibson:

It is probably quite important to communicate the statistics to the committee. As we said earlier, we receive 53,000 referrals each year. We have 24,366 open cases in which there is a concern that children may be at risk. I mention that to give the committee an idea of the volume of work we are doing. As we have communicated on a regular basis, the unallocated cases represent the big concern for us as an agency. It has been mentioned that the number of such cases has been driven down by 51% since 2014. We recognise that approximately 4,700 cases are unallocated. In some of those cases, we must try to define what the concern for the referral is. It is really clear for our business. If we get a referral about a child who will not wear his coat to school during the winter and his mother is really struggling with that, and at the same time, we get a referral about a young girl who has disclosed to her teacher that her father entered her bedroom and acted in a sexually inappropriate way, we will deal with the latter referral there and then. We will sort that situation out there and then. There are many referrals on our system in cases like that of the child who will not wear his coat. As part of our national approach to practice, we are looking at such cases and drilling down into them. As I said earlier when I was speaking about the prevention, partnership and family support programme, there is a place and a pathway for those children to go to. We will look at the child who is not wearing a coat at some stage but not on the day on which the referral is received because our resources are finite. We will deploy them where children are most at risk. I hope that helps.