Mr. Tom Ward:

Regarding the mechanisms for transition, once the legislation was commenced, we had a deadline to meet. We are not immune to the fact that we have been working with the families and the wards of court for many years in many cases. Our objective in all of this was to have the smoothest transition possible for the people concerned. We would have liked to have people engage with us and move applications for discharge earlier than they have up to now. However, our overall intention is that, as and when the court makes the decision for discharge, all the outstanding issues to do with their wardship are wrapped up and that we have a smooth transition to supervision or work under the new regime.

In order to facilitate that, what we have been trying to do is communicate extensively with existing committees to explain to them why the deadline is important. More recently, we have managed to get legal representation for people through the Legal Aid Board to move those applications, so at least the legal aspect of the process is under way and they have somebody independent who can facilitate that aspect of the process.