Ms Oonagh Buckley:

I can. I share the Deputy's view. The litigation environment in which the board is operating now is fundamentally different to that of years ago, but the board itself did not adapt to this new external legal environment. It is only adapting now. As the Deputy knows, I put in place the recruitment of a head of legal services and we will recruit more internal legal resources. I find it very strange. That being said, one of the points I was trying to make last week is that SHD has driven only part of that very substantial layer of losing and conceding cases. Conceding cases is obviously the really big issue there. Why are decisions being taken that we cannot stand over when they are challenged? In fact, to take last year as an example, we conceded 35 cases but 16 of them were on normal planning appeals, three were on SIDs and five were labelled "Other" where we had compulsory purchase orders, CPOs, and what have you. Only 11, that is, approximately one third of them, were SHDs. The point I was very much trying to make last week is that there is kind of a belief in planning circles, in particular, that once SHD decisions have gone through the system, this will all be all right and judicial reviews will fall back to one per week as opposed to two or three or whatever. I do not believe that to be the case. The board has to adapt. It has to bring in additional legal resources internally. In my discussions with our external legal firms, which ably represent us, they are very relieved that the board is moving to strengthen its internal core around being able to take robust decisions.