Draft minutes of the meeting of 12 December 2002 and the revised minutes of the meeting of 21 November 2002 have been circulated. Are they agreed? Agreed.
The main item on the agenda is a meeting with Mr. Liam Kilroy, principal officer of the Department of Education and Science, to discuss special needs education and the report of the task force on autism. This probably covers too wide a range of activities for one meeting, but is nevertheless very important. Mr. Kilroy will be accompanied by Mr. Gabriel Harrison, the assistant chief inspector for special education, and Ms LeeMacCurtain, the director of the National Educational Psychological Service.
On another housekeeping matter, the secretaries and I had to select the three items for the meetings in January in a not very democratic manner, and I would not like that practice to continue, although we have managed to obtain three interesting items. It has been the practice in this and other committees that a working group comprising the Chairman, vice-Chairman and convenors would meet informally and sometimes agree a long-term agenda. Is that something the committee would like to pursue on a trial basis for perhaps one or two months? Otherwise we will waste valuable committee time. Is that agreed? Agreed.