For the first time in a few weeks, business up here on the hill comes to an end while there's still some daylight outside.

We will return tomorrow morning at 10:30 with Stormont Live coverage of this week's meeting of the Health Committee.

Until then, goodbye!

The potential £1.2bn cost to public purse of the RHI scheme is questioned by Mr Cockburn.

He says many subsidy schemes he has looked at are set up in law rather than in contract.

Image source, Getty Images

"Basically, laws can be changed," the CEPA director says, and adds that "there are ways of reducing that potential liability".

"People out there who have gamed the system don't want to hear that," he tells the committee.

He says he will share with MLAs his ideas on how to claw back some of the money, and with that, the questioning ends and he and his colleagues are free to go as the committee moves into closed session.

Gordon Dunne of the DUP asks whether CEPA had looked at the possibility of a simpler scheme, "a capital grant".

"I like that question," Mr Cockburn says adding that it looked at "something called a challenge fund", which was a competitively bid capital grant scheme.

Mr Cockburn says the grant scheme "was the most efficient when we ran our different numbers".

However, the fundamental problem "was that it was going to be too different" from the renewable heat incentive scheme running the Great Britain, "and I think that would have got people here worried".

BBC One

New Alliance Party leader Naomi Long talked about her challenges in politics and her skin cancer diagnosis in last night's Spotlight on BBC One NI.

You can catch up on journalist Mandy McAuley's profile of the east Belfast MLA on the BBC iPlayer.

BBC Politics

So, taking a glance at the chancellor's Autumn Statement, what are the key points?

Image source, Autumn Statement

Our summary of its contents will help you pick out the details most relevant to you.

The DUP's Carla Lockhart asks how much CEPA's "miss" regarding tiering has cost.

"If our recommendations had been followed and the scheme had been reviewed there would not have been any loss," Mr Cockburn replies.

"Your loss," he goes on to say, pointing to Deti, "is because you did not control the budget of the scheme, in terms of value for money".

"Your scheme went because you could not shut it down quickly enough."

Chancellor Philip Hammond's Autumn Statement measures "will provide greater financial security and help Northern Ireland prosper and grow", according to James Brokenshire.

Image source, PA

The Northern Ireland secretary adds that the government remains committed to devolving corporation tax to Stormont "so long as it demonstrates that its finances are on a sustainable footing".

Declan Kearney of Sinn Féin asks CEPA: "Why did you decide to omit tiering from the beginning?"

Mr Cockburn says that "when the initial calculations were done it wasn't clear why [the government's Department of Energy and Climate Change] was using tiering" for its version of the scheme.

Mr Kearney wants to know if the matter of tiering ever came up in discussions with Deti, but Mr Cockburn says CEPA's project manager has no recollection of any such discussion.

"The context at the time was very much people coming back saying 'this scheme is not generous enough'," he says.

Julian O'Neill
BBC News NI Business Correspondent

The additional £250m is perhaps a little more than Stormont had anticipated, but it is spread over four years.

Finance Minister Máirtín Ó Muilleoir had been pushing for much more.

The cash is for capital projects, things like roads, so not day-to-day departmental resource spending.

Expect calls for the money to be used on the York Street Interchange.

But it could be we have to wait until 19 December, the Northern Ireland Executive's budget day, for a clearer indication of how Stormont will spend it.

In reply to a question from chair Robin Swann, Mr Cockburn says the report cost about £80,000, of which CEPA was paid £55,000 for their work.

Returning to the vexed question of tiering, he says: "Hands up, we missed it."

The DUP's Trevor Clarke accuses the CEPA representative of "sort of saying somebody else should have picked it up after we missed it".

"No, I'm not saying that," says Mr Cockburn.

"That's how it's coming across," the South Antrim MLA retorts.

Mr Cockburn explains the concept of the tiering of tariffs.

That happens when the level of the tariff "is greater than the variable cost of heat production".

Image source, Thinkstock

Mr Cockburn says that, in the case of RHI, "the tariff was above the cost of fuel by roughly 0.7% per kWh, and therefore tiering should have been applied".

"We obviously regret that we did not raised the point, especially given what has happened," he adds.

Three representatives of Cambridge Economic Policy Associates (CEPA) are answering question on its role in setting up the RHI scheme.

Mark Cockburn, one of CEPA's directors, says its economic and financial policy consultants prepared a report for Deti - now the Department for the Economy - which they delivered to the department in June 2011.

The Renewable Heat Incentive scheme was introduced in 2012 by the former Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (Deti), with the aim of increasing the uptake of renewable heat technologies.

But in July this year, the Northern Ireland Audit Office stated in a report, external that "serious systematic failings" in the scheme are likely to cost the Northern Ireland budget "hundreds of millions of pounds".

Economy Minister Simon Hamilton described the finding as "deeply shocking".

The Audit Office investigation was prompted when a whistleblower contacted the Northern Ireland Executive in January alleging that the scheme was being abused.

Image source, Tchara

One of the claims was that a farmer was aiming to collect about £1m over 20 years from the scheme for heating an empty shed.

At an initial PAC inquiry session, a senior civil servant apologised for the department's lack of oversight in the scheme and said that by the end of it, it will have cost the public purse a grand total of £1.18bn.

Last month, officials from Ofgem E-Serve, the scheme's administrators, gave evidence to the committee.

They came in for heavy criticism from MLAs, with the SDLP's Daniel McCrossan saying the scandal was "one of the biggest" that politicians had encountered since devolution.

We're back after our lunch break and Ulster Unionist Robin Swann takes his customary seat at the top of the table as this week's meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) sputters into life.

The members are continuing their inquiry into the failed Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme.

Julian O'Neill
BBC News NI Business Correspondent

The Northern Ireland Executive is to receive an extra £250m in infrastructure funding, the chancellor has announced in his Autumn Statement.

Philip Hammond said the money has come from the Barnett Formula, which is used to work out how much devolved governments receive.

Stormont's Finance Minister Máirtín Ó Muilleoir tweeted, external that a joint call for economic stimulus by himself and his counterparts in Scotland and Wales had "struck [a] chord".

With the Education Committee adjourned, we reckon it's time to check out today's offering at the assembly's canteen.

Join us at 14:00 for this week's meeting of the Public Accounts Committee.

The officials depart and Barry McElduff jokes that "the conduct of members is good or better 80% of the time", nodding to the earlier spat between Alliance Party MLA Chris Lyttle and the DUP's Carla Lockhart.

Mr Lyttle says they "could do better".

The committee agrees to request an assembly "take note" debate on the report.

Julian O'Neill
BBC News NI Business Correspondent

Clodagh Rice
BBC News NI Business Reporter