In addition, the departmental structure of public administration, organising its functions into specific national Ministries, was seen to encourage vertical silos that were weak in working across departmental boundaries and addressing cross-cutting policy challenges. The lack of integration and co-ordination that this government department structure generated at the national centre was accentuated at the regional level. For the national centre, this meant that public policy was designed without sufficient input from the regions and that its delivery in the regions was insufficiently connected to maximise its effectiveness. The aims of the GORs were then, first, to co-ordinate policy and investment by the central government departments at the regional level and, second, to act as the ‘eyes and ears’ of central government in monitoring and relaying information from the regions back to the central national departments (Performance and Innovation Unit 2000).