Dr. Aideen Hartney:

There is no one country we can point to and say we will do that model. Different countries have different approaches that could be usefully packaged together. The Netherlands, for example, has a good approach on the supported employment side of things, as does Denmark. The OECD report I referred to - and we can send on the link to the committee after this meeting - has packaged up some of the useful lessons we can learn from. The question of whether we should have more enforcement powers is raised regularly. We have found the monitoring and publication of the report drives attention. People do not like to be named as non-compliant.

In our work, we always balance the monitoring function and the publication of an area where further focus is required with our work to provide ongoing guidance and support. We work closely with bodies that have been non-compliant over a number of years to try to improve their performance. It would be difficult to balance that with a more formal enforcement role. That is a decision for the Government.