Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, first of all, briefly to the comments arising out of the Child Welfare League review report, to note that the department does work in collaboration with the boards on a variety of child welfare matters.

There is an established child and family services working group, that includes CEOs and senior child welfare staff from the boards, who work with the department on child welfare issues. In addition, there was a very strong board representation on the child and family information system working group. A user group, whose input very much shaped that reporting system.

With respect to the budgeting and financial reporting processes, the department has worked closely with the boards over the last two years to try to build capacity at the board level for the government's business planning process. This has included regular updates at the quarterly CEO meetings and the monthly teleconferences on the government's budgeting requirements, what we were expected to bring to Financial Management Board and the Legislative Assembly. It also has included workshops for board staff and some progress has certainly been made in that regard.

However, boards have really been affected by turnover within their own administration, which has really hampered their ability to meet all of these requirements. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.