Ms Anne Colgan:

There are a number of very evident things that can be done quite quickly. What has slowed this down for a very long time is the very elaborate process. It was an eight-stage process and is now four stages but even that is taking far too long. The procurement process is particularly challenging. Then there is the cap on the amount of funding available to local authorities. A study was done not that long ago on how that process could be sped up but I do not think that was ever put on the table for implementation. There are other straightforward issues, like design, for example. It should be possible to come up with a number of pro forma designs for particular types of units, which could easily be applied across the board, a bit like the Department of Education does with schools. It might tailor the design to a particular population of children but it does not move too much beyond that set of designs. Our housing authorities would have to acknowledge that there is a high level of frustration involved in the process at the moment and it is not beyond the bounds of the powers that be to streamline that process and make it much more effective. Local authorities are hamstrung at the moment and sometimes, unfortunately, we have to carry the blame for the slowness of the process because we are at the pointy end of delivery.