• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 10 November 2010

The question has regularly been asked by those of us certainly from this side in the past about handing regeneration back to the boroughs. Where does this current situation leave us on that question, if I can follow the line that Tony was taking about on localism?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 10 November 2010

I would like to return, please, to the question which was raised by John Biggs about the possible burden on London council taxpayers of the change of control. It is clear that there are going to be some continuing obligations which the LDA has entered into which are going to have to continue to be paid for. I want to know how you decide how the payments are going to be made? If those payments are going to be made, where is the money coming from? As I understand it, the vast bulk of the money which Government is going...

• Question by: Joanne McCartney
• Meeting date: 10 November 2010

In your opening statement you said that you were first going to look at inanimate objects, which led me to believe that, secondly, you would then look at staffing. We have got the Olympics coming up. Budget cuts are front-loaded. Are we going to see a sticking plaster put over officer numbers at the moment and then a sharp decline after the Olympics?

• Question by: Richard Barnbrook
• Meeting date: 10 November 2010

I would like to continue on the aspect of public confidence. Recently I have made - on three occasions and I am quite surprised and alarmed by the results - freedom of information requests (FOIs) to the Metropolitan Police Service. Each of those related to violent incidents. I had asked for the description of the attackers, person or persons involved. The reply has come back. One example is with Thomas Hewitt [Thomas Hewitt Jones, a man attacked in Dulwich in July 2010]. Two comments come back. One is that to issue a description of the perpetrators would not be in...

• Question by: Joanne McCartney
• Meeting date: 10 November 2010

Just picking up where I left off earlier. Other forces, to deal with budget pressures, have issued redundancy notices to civilian and police community support officers (PCSO) staff. I want to know whether the Metropolitan Police Service is looking at doing that and what are the timescales? Secondly, other forces are requiring officers with 30 years plus experience to retire. Is the Metropolitan Police Service looking at that and what are the implications?

• Question by: Caroline Pidgeon
• Meeting date: 10 November 2010

I would like to pick up a couple of the issues from earlier. I am, Sir Paul, really reassured in your commitment to Safer Neighbourhood Teams and, particularly, that you are nervous about moving away from the ward-based model; I certainly am as well. It is very reassuring compared to what I have heard the Assistant Commissioner in Territorial Policing say. I found that he clearly has ideas to change TP completely. You said to Richard [Tracey] that that might be Surrey, this is London. It seems to me Ian McPherson's ideas come from Norfolk, and that is not London...

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 10 November 2010

As you have heard, we have been taking evidence elsewhere about frontline policing, whether the Commissioner likes the term or not. We have been talking to HMIC and former chief constables and one point raised is that there is a tendency sometimes for officers to go off into specialist units and then, when the threat and the risk they are supposed to be addressing within those specialist units decreases, they are not taken off into normal duties again. What is your view, Commissioner, of that point that has been made to us?

• Question by: Brian Coleman
• Meeting date: 10 November 2010

I was rather encouraged by remarks of the Chairman and the Commissioner on the budget issues. What would the Commissioner say to borough commanders who are rushing around their boroughs spreading doom and gloom, not least the borough commander of Barnet who did it again on Monday night in front of a meeting of Barnet cabinet? He said he had got to reallocate his resources. That will, inevitably, mean cuts in Safer Neighbourhood and does not rule out extraction. Sadly it is going back to the language of ten years ago with talk about deprivation, poverty and crime figures. It...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 10 November 2010

Can we see an approach to CPEGs which measures the results they achieve in terms of output, rather than, say, the number of meetings they have or the number of consultations they take part in, which are the type of measurements that encourage people to make up work rather than encourage them to solve problems?

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 10 November 2010

): The area I want to talk about is prevention and it is linked with public confidence. We know we have heard and we would all agree that visibility and good performance are key factors relating to maintaining confidence. Would you agree with me that public confidence is also improved if people believe that the police are working with other agencies and neighbourhood watches to prevent crime? I think, sometimes, we miss out that third factor. At a full Authority meeting in September 2010 you said, 'Sometimes we move into gaps in the market and that, on occasion, has been...