THE candour with which Valerie Watts, the chief executive of the Health and Social Care Board, responded when she learned how her organisation failed to disclose the correct number of overseas trips taken by her staff is to be welcomed.
Less welcome is what the episode reveals about the organisation.
It is not only embarrassing for Ms Watts and her colleagues, but it will also do little to dispel widely held beliefs about the competency and commitment to transparency of the board itself as well as public administration more generally.
Ms Watts, who took over the reins of the board earlier this year, told this newspaper she had to be "scraped off the ceiling" when she was told about a cover-up around trips taken abroad for training purposes.
Although it is not entirely clear why, the board had been unable to supply the relevant information to The Irish News.
It insisted that the query be submitted as a request under freedom of information (FoI) legislation, echoing a pattern becoming wearily familiar to those in the media and elsewhere seeking responses from public bodies.
Initially, details of 23 trips were supplied. Only when pressed further for the FoI response to be reviewed did the board, three weeks later, share information about a further 19 trips.
Seeking similar information from the board in the past has involved navigating a Byzantine network of press offices and FoI requests, at turns torturous and obstructive, which could only lead one to conclude that its commitment to transparency about how taxpayers' money is spent was less than enthusiastic.
After being scraped off the ceiling, Ms Watts said she asked: "Why the hell haven't we just given them all the information?"
She admitted it "looks like incompetency" - which is exactly what it looks like to many observers - and added that she found herself in an uncomfortable position.
To her credit, Ms Watts said she would take "that one on the chin", and her remark that "it's not a good situation for the board" seems beyond contradiction.
In a system which already includes a fully-staffed Stormont department and six health and social care trusts, the Health and Social Care Board already struggles to explain its role.
It is a task which becomes even more difficult at a time when we are being told that public spending, and the health budget in particular, is increasingly straitened.
The argument that the board's functions should be rolled into those of the department and trusts is persuasive, for example.
Ms Watts and her colleagues, as with every other part of the public sector, need to offer convincing evidence that the board is offering taxpayers value for money.