Examination of witnesses (Questions 20
- 39)
WEDNESDAY 16 JUNE 1999
MR BRUCE
ROBINSON and MR
LESLIE ROSS
20. Are you allowed to engage in red-blooded
competition with other parts of the United Kingdom or are there
some forms of constraint or gentleman's agreement that you are
under in such matters?
(Mr Robinson) There is a structure in place to manage
the competition because clearly there is competition, and that
structure is through DTI and the Invest in Britain Bureau (IBB)
and they have representation in the Embassies, in the High Commissions
and in the Consulates around the world, and where we also have
a presence in the market we seek to work closely with them to
integrate our activities because we certainly see them as a source
of some leads. Equally well, we recognise that there will be projects
we may come across that Northern Ireland is not really in contention
for. So there clearly are the opportunities for mutual benefit
in this. Where the IBB arrangements are being particularly focussed
is on the question of the competition around grant-aid. I think
it is generally seen that competition in other ways is actually
quite healthy, but I will ask Leslie if he wants to elaborate.
He deals with the liaison particularly with IBB.
(Mr Ross) The framework for co-ordination across the
UK is in place and there is a Committee on Overseas Promotion
which meets quarterly in London, chaired by the DTI, at which
the Invest in Britain Bureau, the Scots, the Welsh and all the
English regions attend. This is the structure where debate and
discussion take place on areas of common interest. There is also
an arrangement in place whereby we notify the IBB, especially
in relation to large projects. There is an understanding and acceptance
by IBB that competition with the UK, so long as it is not about
money, is healthy and is helpful to the potential investor. It
has been recognised that the potential investor will be looking
at other regions, very seldom at just one region and if they look
at different of regions in the United Kingdom they are generally
focussed on issues such as "What sort of people have they
got? What skills have they got? What is the transportation like?
What are the university linkages?" and all those sorts of
issues. In this way you are selling your infrastructure in its
widest sense as distinct from selling grants, and whenever we
are marketing or selling Northern Ireland, we do not focus on
grants. They will become an element of securing projects but they
do not generally feature in the business case that has to be made
in respect of investing in Northern Ireland or, indeed, in the
initial discussions that companies would have with us.
21. That is very interesting. There is a clear
tension between, on the one hand, co-operating with the rest of
the United Kingdom to make more noise but at the same time there
is the capacity for talking up your own product and talking down
other parts of the United Kingdom. Do you think that the balance
will change post devolution and the competition will become rather
more red-blooded than it has been even between yourselves and
the rest of the United Kingdom?
(Mr Robinson) That is hard to judge at this stage.
What I think will happen with the RDAs in England is that we will
see a more focused marketing message coming out of the English
regions. So to that extent I think competition will increase because
they will focus on that. We know that, for example, the RDAs are
quite interested in attracting executives from ourselves and the
Scots and the Welsh because of their experience, so I think the
competition will increase for that reason. But there is a parallel
with how we operate here in Northern Ireland ourselves and the
district councils and the interests between the various groups
because this is all about location and you can only have one winner
in this. There are no silver medals in this business. You only
get the project or you do not. So we seek as well here in Northern
Ireland, in discussions with districts councils, to create the
sense of the competition coming in at the appropriate stage, and
there is an appropriate stage, but that it is not up-front. I
think we have, first of all, to convince the company that Northern
Ireland is the right place to come to and then where they seek
to locate within it. I think in a parallel way with the United
Kingdom, that very often there is the debate, first of all, "Should
it be within the United Kingdom?" and, as I say, we can benefit
from that. So I think that is the balance.
22. Finally, perhaps, and bearing in mind that
there are going to be investors looking for specifically an Irish
location, for some of the reasons you have mentioned, how do you
compete with the Republic of Ireland, and in particular can you
match their financial incentives?
(Mr Robinson) The way we are competing at present
with the Republic of Ireland is primarily on availability of people
and cost. There is no question that the success that they have
had in recent years has led to some strain on availability of
resources, particularly in the Dublin area. It is getting harder
and harder to recruit people and also there is a degree of wage
inflation going on. There are also considerable infrastructure
disadvantages in the Republic vis-a"-vis Northern
Ireland. So those would be the three main components of our marketing
against them at present. If you look at the projects that have
come to Northern Ireland in the last year, in software and in
network services we would have been head-to-head with the IDA
in virtually all of them. I think that the pattern of success
in those areas demonstrates that we can match the offer.
Mr McGrady
23. In your memorandum to the Committee, part
of your strategy statement says that you wish to provide equality
of opportunity and fair treatment and to give particular emphasis
to areas of greatest disadvantage. I presume that the mechanism
for doing that is to use the targeting social need concept, but
in your memorandum in that respect you say that 75 per cent of
all first-time locational visits from inward investors should
be to TSN areas. How do you manage to achieve that or how are
you moving towards achieving that objective?
(Mr Robinson) The results show that we are, on first-time
visits, getting close to achieving it. The emphasis, as you say,
in the equality really, the vehicle for us delivering on that,
is through TSN policy, with the commitment of both the visits
and the investment. We have seen over the last few years a reasonable
amount of success in getting companies to locate there but obviously
in the final analysis it is for the companies to choose where
they locate. What I think is very important then for us to seek
to do, particularly with the Training and Employment Agency in
the lead, is also to see that the job opportunities are actually
available in those communities of greatest need, that it is not
just a question of location, it is also a question of seeking
to have those job opportunities available to the people in those
communities, and that is the ultimate working-out of that TSN
policy.
24. The secondary part of your target or your
objective in that respect was that 75 per cent also of first-time
investment projects, not just the visitations but the actual successful
applications, as it were, be located in or adjacent to TSN areas.
How far do you think you have progressed with that, because I
am sure you would agree with me that the history over the past
ten to 15 years has been anything but targeting the areas of greatest
unemployment. In your answer would you indicate in some way to
the Committee the difference between "located in" and
"adjacent to"? I do not mean in terms of miles but I
mean in terms of the "chill factor", which very often
means that short distances are barriers to mobile labour?
(Mr Robinson) We would recognise the point you are
making about the availability opportunity and the question of
adjacency. I think also it is important to realise that in getting
projects to locate, the availability of land, availability of
suitable property, is quite an important issue for the company.
So in referring to the adjacency we seek to make clear that the
opportunity is also available to the community and we as have
progressed along this road we have learned a lot and some of that
we are still applying and finding fresh ways to apply. As I said
earlier, the key issue, I think, is that the job opportunities
are available to people in the communities and that the location
of the project is designed, and that commitment to locate within
the community is designed, to get around this issue of the chill
factor. We have also been working with the Training and Employment
Agency and new investors coming in on programmes, both on New
Deal and Bridge to Employment programmes, which are designed to
take specific opportunities into the communities and use community
training providers as a way of preparing people for the job opportunities
and allowing them to compete. We have done that most particularly
in West Belfast on the Springvale site.
25. Have you any indication of how successful
you are or otherwise in achieving the two targets which I mentioned,
the 75 per cent new first-time visitations and the 75 per cent
actual inward investment location?
(Mr Robinson) In the submission we indicated there
were 55 new projects in the last four years. Thirty-seven of the
projects, that is, 68 per cent, and 6,149 jobs promoted, that
is, 87 per cent, have gone into or adjacent to those areas.
26. The reason I ask that question is that that
is a very surprising statistic you have given. By experience—not
by statistical knowledge but by experience—I know that large
tracts of TSN areas have had no inward investment at all in the
past ten years, so you must have had an enormous upsurge between
April 1995 and March 1999 which has not yet come through?
(Mr Robinson) And that is the case, Chairman, as I
sought to illustrate by saying five years ago we were talking
about seven new inward investment projects going through, 10,
11, 12 and now 21, so that much of the growth has happened in
the last year and the last two years.
27. Before I go on to the next question in this
respect, could I ask you to give us some geographical breakdown
of how you interpret targeting social need, what areas and how
you define them as such areas? Do you simply take the Department
of Education's assessment and say, "That's okay with us,"
or do you do your own thing, but that is for another day, if I
may? The next question I wish to ask is, given your strategy of
bringing employment to the areas of unemployment, are these regions
which are designated given any sort of aid priority over and above
areas of full employment? Is that a factor, or sufficient?
(Mr Robinson) The primary instrument that we have
is that new investment coming into areas of social need can get
up to 50 per cent capital grant and investment going into the
other areas in Northern Ireland can get up to 30 per cent capital
grant. So that is the prime policy instrument for achieving this,
but, in addition, we have been working towards developing, because
just as we have moved the marketing of Northern Ireland away from
a lot of money as the reason for coming to Northern Ireland towards
the availability of good people, so we believe that in helping
getting investment into these areas, if we simply emphasise the
money that in itself does not deliver all that we want, and so
we have been working to help develop the opportunity to attract
good people as part and parcel of the policy towards TSN, and
we see also issues like the availability of telecoms widely throughout
Northern Ireland as very helpful to us in promoting that policy.
So that infrastructure is a component of it as well and has to
be a component of it.
28. How do you apply this strategy objective
of trying to get inward investors to settle and develop in these
areas of need and unemployment? Does that have a debilitating
effect on their subsequent decision-making? In other words, presumably
you direct them quite forcibly to these areas? If they reject
that enticement does it make it more difficult for you to sell
to them to come into other areas?
(Mr Robinson) I think what I would go back to, Chairman,
is the process we go through with an inward investor. Typically,
we are engaged with him over 12, 15, 18 months and your initial
assessment of the project and the prospect of being able to land
it for Northern Ireland and so on play a big part in influencing
your strategy and how you deal with the company. So we put a very
considerable emphasis back on to the initial contacts with these
companies, very often in their own offices, and it is very important
to understand the culture of the company. For example, as no doubt
Members of this Committee are aware, some companies in America
will lay a great deal of emphasis in their mission statement on
social responsibility and will place that quite high on their
own personal agenda. You might very often find they are running
programmes already in some of the deprived areas in the cities
they are in. These are all the strands that help, these are all
the bits of intelligence-gathering that help to shape and understand
the likelihood of getting the project and what we have to do to
get it. So the process of taking people to see particular areas
will start much sooner and then it goes through a set of iterations
and we test it out, and we understand, for example, whether the
project manager feels comfortable with all those concepts or not
or whether the decision-maker does. So it is a much more longer-term
and evolutionary approach to that part of the selling and that
is what I will be seeking to convey.
(Mr Ross) Potential investors have become very sophisticated.
That has become very obvious over the last three to four years,
and before they come to Northern Ireland they tend to prescribe
to us what it is they want to see and who it is they want to meet.
Of the initial number of potential investors that come, many will
not leave IDB House because they come in in the morning, go out
in the evening and they want to have all the meetings conducted
in one location there. For those who go outside IDB House they
will state their requirements, such as "I want to meet the
transportation providers or the universities or existing investors
in a particular sector," Therefore by the time they visit
Northern Ireland they have a model that they want us to implement
and it becomes quite difficult to try to persuade as many investors
as we might like to get out to all of these council areas; but
it is still our objective and part of our strategy to do so.
Mr McGrady: Thank you very much. Could I end
by asking you, could you provide a geographical analysis of your
statistic on associated job promotions in areas of TSN from April
1995 to March 1999?
Chairman: Was that rhetorical or are you seeking
information?
Mr McGrady: I am seeking that they supply the
information that we need and they very generously nodded their
heads in assent.[1]
Chairman: We will make sure the nods get into
the shorthand note.
Mr Grogan
29. Your memorandum indicated that over many
years the troubles in Northern Ireland have affected your ability
to promote Northern Ireland abroad. To what extent has the signing
of the Good Friday Agreement changed that? And did you also say
to an earlier question that the nature of inward investment has
changed in recent years? Could you elaborate on that as well?
(Mr Robinson) Chairman, I said earlier that undoubtedly
the political progress we have made, especially over the last
year, has helped us in terms of presenting Northern Ireland as
an investment location, and yet I also indicated the quality aspects,
which are harder to measure, but that the quality of the projects
coming in now we judge to be significantly stronger. We can see
that in a number of the investments that we have got recently
on the software side. We have two very major American insurance
businesses, Allstate and Liberty Mutual, who have come to Northern
Ireland to set up software development centres and they have no
particular marketing reason to come to Northern Ireland. Allstate
are not selling any products in the United Kingdom at all; Liberty
Mutual is doing it on a very small scale. When you talk to financial
services companies right around the world, but particularly in
America, those are excellent testimonials. Equally well, we have
seen Abbey National and Prudential commit to very substantial
investments in the last few years in Northern Ireland. Abbey National
actually announced an expansion of the original project at the
time when they were just opening the building. So those again
are very important and valuable testimonials. That is the calibre
of company. We have also had recently coming into the telecommunications
sector Fujitsu, who have come in in the last few years and again
announced a major software development, a very powerful testimonial
for us in Japan.
30. Is the continuing political uncertainty
over the future of political structures something that inward
investors raise in meetings with you? Is it a matter of concern
now, and shall we say the Good Friday Agreement were to collapse,
what effect do you think that would have on your job of attracting
inward investment?
(Mr Robinson) The investment decision invariably is
a decision for some five, seven, ten years in the minds of the
executives and so long-term outlook and long-term prospects form
a core part of the decision-making. That is beyond any question
whatsoever. There is no doubt that, as I say, the progress has
helped us greatly and that if that were not to continue, clearly
from our point of view that would be a disadvantage in terms of
marketing Northern Ireland as an investment location.
(Mr Ross) I want to come back, Chairman, on the nature
of the investment. If you step right back the nature of the investment
is obviously determined by the market conditions, so that by looking
at the growth of sectors in the market, in world terms, one sees
that software, network services and telecoms are the three key
sectors which offer us the greatest opportunity, and determines
for us the nature of the investment we are likely to get. The
nature of our achievements over the last year simply reflected
the market conditions in the world.
31. Just switching to the performance of your
overseas offices, how do you determine their success? Is it the
number of leads that they get or the number of projects that result
from those leads, and which would be your best performing office
over the last few years?
(Mr Robinson) I think the key issue for us is landing
projects. As I described it earlier, there are no silver medals
in this business and over the last few years the States has been
particularly strong for us. We have found with the Far East a
combination of, obviously, in the last 18 months their particular
financial difficulties, which have also produced a major devaluation
of many of those currencies, so that manufacturing in the Far
East has become cheaper just by definition of those devaluations,
and so the Far East has got very quiet for us. As to Europe, we
are rethinking our strategy and our approach. Europe has not been
a happy place for us over the last number of years and we are
rethinking our way through that. So the States and Great Britain
have been the two very strong points. We have over the last couple
of years been doing particularly well also out of the South East
of England, as I said, because of these growth sectors that Leslie
referred to of software and network services. The structure we
have in America is that we have really centralised everything
in Chicago and our offices outside that are quite small. We have
two people on the East Coast in a recently-opened office in Boston;
we have two people in Atlanta, an office we opened four years
ago, and we have a reasonable presence, about five people, on
the West Coast in San Jose and San Jose is doing very well, but
we tend to run the States through Chicago and not as independent
offices. So it would be a bit invidious to point to any one of
those because in many ways you could argue that the offices are
only satellites of the network.
Mr Donaldson
32. Gentlemen, I suppose it is not insignificant
that we are here in Londonderry, which has enjoyed quite a degree
of success in terms of attracting inward investment, and that
does raise, I think, the question of the role of, for example,
local authorities. As you will be aware, the previous government
introduced a provision whereby local authorities could use their
ability to raise funds through the district rate to promote economic
development in their areas. We have 26 local authorities in Northern
Ireland. What steps do you, IDB, take to co-ordinate the work
of other bodies, including local authorities, in seeking to secure
inward investors, and do you find at times, as a result of 26
players in the field, some perhaps more active than others, that
you have to arbitrate between the competing claims from different
local authorities?
(Mr Robinson) Chairman, as I indicated earlier, the
involvement of district councils and the economic development
officers has produced what we consider to be a really significant
interest in economic development and that has been very positive
and I think the vast majority of district councils are very good
at approaching and stimulating local enterprise and seeking to
develop and stimulate new businesses in the area. Of course, there
is a significant interest in all those areas, in all the district
councils, in inward investment and we have, as a result of those
developments, dedicated a resource in IDB to deal with the liaison
with the local councils. While we have investors coming in who
seem to be very serious about Northern Ireland, we think there
is a real strength in the local councils, where there is a provision
of some of the key requirements for that project, coming in and
playing a part, because certainly our experience in America is
that business in America particularly is used to close interaction
with the local political infrastructure, and so it is very valuable
for us to draw in the local councils at an early stage, where,
as I say, the project seems to fit the ability of the area to
deliver. What I think we have seen emerging in the last 18 months
is some recognition on the part of the councils and the economic
development officers that there was a certain amount of catching-up
to be done, a certain amount of basic work to be done on developing
promotional material for the area and so forth, and now that that
has been done and now that a lot of the stimulus has come for
local enterprise, actually they are more effective if they themselves
to start to join together into bigger groups; for example, the
very interesting development in what is most of County Antrim,
as it happens, where actually the seven economic development officers
there have come together to develop a local supply database covering
all those district councils. So I think that the process of a
certain amount of competition undoubtedly was there for a time
but I think it is working its way through very successfully, where
most of the district councils realise that as an area they are
quite small in relation to the task and the challenge and that
they are naturally coming together. So I think that situation
is working well. Most of the councils also have undertaken their
own initiatives, particularly in visiting parts of America and
building twinning relationships, and again those have been very
positive because they have provided a direct interface with the
councils and the officials understanding the demand of American
business, and we have found that as they have gone through that
process they have a greater appreciation of some of the issues
that we are seeking to deal with. We also feel—though there
may be one or two exceptions to this—that by and large when
they feel that there is a prospect there they seek to draw us
in to get advice, sometimes to use our promotional material and
support directly, sometimes to continue to front it, and we understand
that and see that, because it is back again to limited resource,
the more resource that is being deployed in seeking new investment
from our point of view, the better.
33. In terms of your co-operation with local
authorities, to what extent is that proactive as well as reactive?
For example, recently you have opened two new industrial development
sites, one on the Belfast Road at Downpatrick and one at Knockmore
in Lisburn. Obviously there is a strategy there somewhere on your
part which seeks to attract investors into those two locations.
To what extent is that strategy being developed in co-operation
with other agencies at a local level, such as the respective district
councils?
(Mr Robinson) Certainly from our perspective we are
moving forward on that and we are happy and we believe that on
some of the issues that we have worked through with the councils
there is a recognition on both sides. You are using the illustration
of those two sites. We see them as very different, with very different
characteristics and, therefore, very different in what we want
to do and I have been seeking to convey in the answers to these
questions that we have become more and more targeted and focused
on the specific requirements, and what we are seeking to do as
well with the councils is to encourage them to see those sites
as very different. The one in Downpatrick is 50 usable acres out
of a 75 acre site. We believe it is going to be beautifully landscaped.
It is right beside the Quoile River. There are all sorts of opportunities
to appeal to high-tech industry and tradeable services. You can
literally see the Mourne Mountains from the back of the site.
All our presentations to outside investors, our computer-generated
material, have the Mourne Mountains in them and the Downpatrick
Cathedral and St Patrick's burial place as part and parcel of
the offering there. On the other hand, we would see Knockmore
as the type of site where we are more likely to attract the very
big investor with several hundred jobs because it is right beside
the major urban area and at the hub of the whole road infrastructure
and rail infrastructure for this island. So we can see quite different
characteristics. One of the issues for us, of course, is hopefully
to see that the officials in those areas and the councils in those
areas also recognise that in making that distinction it is a market-driven
distinction. It is not us finding some way to carve up the cake
in some way differently. It is not us applying it, it is rather
showing the market which is driving the choice or decision by
the company.
34. Each inward investment project forecasts
the number of jobs it will either create or safeguard. To what
extent are these targets actually achieved in practice, i.e. what
has been the number of projects over, say, the last ten years
that have either exceeded, met or failed to meet their targets
for permanent jobs? And overall, what percentage of forecast jobs
have been created and still exist, say, five years later?
(Mr Robinson) That is a major amount of data that
underlies that. If I can hit the headlines, Chairman, we will
happily come back with some more detailed data on that to answer
these questions.
Chairman
35. Of course.
(Mr Robinson) The conversion rate of jobs promised
to jobs delivered on the ground, the average is running at 70
per cent and that has been the case for about the last ten years.
The Committee of Public Accounts undertook work on this in the
early 1990s and at much the same time looked at the Scottish and
Welsh experience and they were broadly similar. We were marginally
better than the Scots, I believe, and slightly worse than the
Welsh. They were all bracketed very much together. The pattern
over the last few years, as I said, has remained very much at
that 70 per cent of them actually being delivered. The average
time that those exist we show in our annual report. The average
life of those is about eight years and again that performance
would be broadly in line with other development agencies. What
also, of course, I am conscious of is that there was a more recent
Audit Office report into new inward investment. We are still not
sure what is happening about that. We have not had an opportunity
to respond to it, and so it is probably not appropriate, Chairman,
to go into much detail, but the factual bit of that was that it
referred to the fact that of the new inward investment, about
50 per cent of the jobs had been provided and 50 per cent of the
assistance was paid. Sorry, I should have said in reference to
the 70 per cent, of jobs achieved noted above that a similar amount
of the assistance promised was paid, about 70 per cent of the
offers made, were paid. As I say, the new inward investment was
the first time that that analysis had ever been done as a sub-set
the overall investment results and there are a number of elements
and issues in that but I think it would be proper to leave that
to come up before the Committee of Public Accounts.
36. Can you clarify what you mean by the average
lifespan of a job being eight years?
(Mr Robinson) As the project builds up and people
come on board, we monitor that change in employment that the companies
are required to return to us. We then monitor those employment
returns for quite some time after the project has been up and
running and we have the requirement on the company to provide
us with the data. So we do long-term time series analysis to support
that and it shows that the projects continue and the jobs continue
for, as I said, up to eight years. Eight years would be the period.
37. Are you saying by that that where IDB attract
an inward investor to Northern Ireland, the average expectation,
or the average reality, of the lifespan of those jobs, ie the
employment that they provide for the local community, is eight
years? Are you saying that of the companies you have attracted
into Northern Ireland over the last 15 or 20 years and even longer
the IDB have been operating, the jobs that are attracted here
on average last eight years?
(Mr Robinson) Yes. If you were to work at, say, a
nominal 100 that we promote, 70 of those are delivered and that
produces 560 man-years of employment, eight times seven.
Mr Hunter
38. Chairman, continuing that line of questioning,
could I refer you to the Comptroller and Auditor General's report
of October 1998. I was going to ask for any general comments you
may have on that report because one of the points that are emphasised
in it is the short duration of many jobs created by IDB activity.
There is also perhaps some adverse criticism of overseas promotion.
Do you feel the comments in this report are fair in that respect?
(Mr Robinson) In seeking to put some factual information
on the record, Chairman, as regards that, as I have indicated,
it is the first time any analysis has been undertaken on this
sub-set of new inward investment and the corollary is that the
70 per cent overall indicates that businesses that are established
and re-invest obviously achieve quite a high level of delivery.
You will also see on close scrutiny of that report that there
were 52 projects reported and that 15 of those projects subsequently
expanded and there is no analysis in the report whatsoever of
what happened to the 15 projects after the expansion, so that
the subsequent performance does not form any part of the report.
Of course, those subsequent expansions would also have received
some public funding but there is no analysis undertaken of that.
So you can see, Chairman, that I would be suggesting that it is
an incomplete analysis if it does not go on and look at the 15
good performers as to what happened subsequently. The second thing
is that I think it points clearly, as I say, to the matching of
the money to the achievement and indicates that IDB, in structuring
the offers to those companies, structured them in such a way that,
as the companies achieved their targets, the public support went
in and if they did not achieve their targets there was no public
support paid. I think that is an important aspect, that in structuring
the transactions the IDB offers recognised some of the risks inherent
in the projects. I think on the aspects you mentioned about promotion,
the comments in there, I have been seeking, Chairman, to indicate
that the process of inward investment is actually quite long term
and it is exceptionally difficult to track when you produce costs
on an annual basis, to disaggregate those costs that adhere to
a project, a project that continues through two or three financial
years, to get some sense of what the cost was, and that was one
of the areas. Another aspect was, as I indicated in an answer
to an earlier question, the manner in which we manage the operations
in North America, with a head office and separate offices working
really largely with a centralised system. I would question the
value of starting to analyse the costs on an office-by-office
basis against projects when you operate that way, particularly
when you add this point that we also have sought to make about
the passing of responsibility for the cases over to Belfast and
the work that continues, that the overseas offices' responsibility
moves to supporting the work, the work that is then being driven
from this side of the Atlantic, where, having got the visitor
in for the first time, much of the detailed work is then done
out of Northern Ireland. I think that when you look at some of
the issues about cost and cost-effectiveness, to disaggregate
them to offices is not as meaningful as to deal with the overall
cost-effectiveness, which I would readily accept is an important
issue.
39. I have been prompted to ask if you would
like to submit written comments on this report or are you satisfied
with what is said there?
(Mr Robinson) Chairman, I would be keen to be guided
a little bit by you in this because of the nature of its being
an Audit Office report. It is somewhat unusual territory you find
yourselves in, where the PAC has not yet heard the report, we
have not been called and we are not quite sure what is going to
happen.
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