Mr. Dalton Tattan:

I will make some general comments. Again, advice will need to be sought on that issue and on the terms of the contract on which we engaged the company. As I touched on earlier, the timetable which we were set was very ambitious. Ms Feeney and her colleagues in the calculated grades office and others, including Polymetrika, were working flat out through the summer to try to achieve what was needed.

As I mentioned, the coding in question was very complicated and it was written in such a way as would have allowed for some independent external scrutiny. We had tried, as Dr. Hislop said, sourcing others who could have been there as contingency or as a way to check that aspect of the process. It simply did not prove possible in the time we had, and with the demand and the expertise required. It is something that we will, ultimately, have to consider.