Mr. Bernard Gloster:

There are three parts to the headline answer on that. It is difficult to expect the smaller organisations to do more, stretch further or change because their origins are often found in a local individual who started work on a particular cause or campaign of altruism. We have to respect that. There have been examples of where we tried to rationalise some of those organisations and the reaction from their communities was not positive.

That is the first thing. The second thing I would say is that in the bigger funded agencies, we certainly look for them to join us in different efficiency measures. To be fair, the CFO has repeatedly pointed out that efficiencies in our type of work are often much more about being able to do more work with the same resource, for example, responding to more people on waiting lists rather than necessarily saving money. Where I do think there is a requirement for an examination, which is certainly within my sights to examine in the context of establishing the six RHAs, is the very big section 38 agencies and the voluntary hospitals. The examination would look at their resource, processes and efficiencies, do a control comparison to some of our own, and see how best the resource is being utilised to serve the population of that region. I hope there may be something in that.