Ms Sabha Greene:

There are reasons the Government has decided the agency should have greater autonomy and be separate from the Department. As an office of the Department it is a section of the Department and it forms part of the pool of the resources that are available to the Department. When an entity is separate and autonomous it has much more control over its resources. For example, if the ODCE wanted to recruit IT staff that request would be one of a number of requests to the Department's human resources section. If the priorities of the Department as a whole are such that resources have to be put into a different area then the ODCE request may be lower down on the list of priorities. As a standalone entity it has more control over its own resources because it does not form part of the pool of the Department as a whole.