Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): We will begin our on-the-record deliberations. If members are agreed, Hansard will report on the session as part of our inquiry. At page 203 of the tabled pack, there is information for the session, including the Hansard transcript of the session with the head of the Civil Service and the Hansard transcript of last week's Committee deliberations. If we are content, the transcript from today will be added to the Committee pack.

We have slightly clarified the list of witnesses by removing and adding potential or hoped-for invitees. In my view, we are making progress on the Civil Service inquiry. We got evidence from the Minister today. What the permanent secretary said about this being a priority for him was particularly interesting. He also said that he will come back and give us some time as a witness. That is important, particularly because we are interested in the structural anomalies, to put it mildly, around the role of the head of the Civil Service and the functional responsibilities for Civil Service reform being on people in the Department of Finance. We have talked a bit about the session that we had with the head of the Civil Service, and we hope to have another one very soon, although possibly on a different subject.

Does anybody else wish to say anything about what we have discussed? No.