Ms Madeleine Delaney:

Investigation and the appointment of inspectors is the thin end of our powers and we do not use it in all cases, which is why there have been so few investigations overall. The bulk of our activity is done on a one-to-one basis with the charities without appointing inspectors where we can get the information asses it and sort out the issues, and the charities are co-operative and willing to implement whatever measures are needed. This represents the vast majority of the work we do. We closed 654 concerns last year but only appointed one inspector. This gives the committee a flavour of the situation.

I will try to get the Deputy a figure for the number of investigations that we initiate ourselves.