To ask the Minister of Health to outline the changes made after the regional bureaucracy action plan, emerging from the 2012 Social Work strategy; and what evidence exists that this has reduced bureaucracy for social workers.

A number of initiatives have been progressed including: a new approach to carers’ assessments; the introduction of an electronic version of the Northern Ireland Single Assessment tool; use of digital dictation and mobile devices. There is evidence of some of these reducing bureaucracy, but it has been difficult to quantify this in others. A range of opportunities have recently been identified with stakeholders to reduce bureaucracy and are currently being considered by my Department.