• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 21 October 2009

Could I take up one point with you on the whole relative costs of salaries and so on? Mr Higgins, you, I think, serve with seven other directors on the ODA, receiving pretty substantial salaries. Indeed, I believe you, this last year, did forego half of your bonus until 2012. Would it be reasonable for you and your fellow directors to consider foregoing your complete bonus until you have finished the job, and then receive whatever you are entitled to, through the success you have achieved?

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 21 October 2009

Murad Qureshi (AM): I just want to continue on Richard Tracey's theme, actually, and I think it is a major reputational risk for the ODA, quite honestly, these whole bonuses that you have been giving yourselves. I just want to be clear; how can the ODA possibly justify raking in £2.6 million in salaries and bonuses when there is a funding shortfall for the Olympic sports' venues themselves, and the land assembly in particular?

• Question by: Brian Coleman
• Meeting date: 21 October 2009

Mr Armitt, let us just get this straight. You approved Mr Higgins' package which is £641,000 a year, but your own package is £250,000. That is part time isn't it?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 18 March 2009

I very, very much welcome this change in direction and that you are now coming forward with some exciting new plans for the Board meeting tomorrow, looking at free home insulation scheme. It was only back on 6 January 2009, Peter, that you were telling me at the Assembly's Budget and Performance Committee that you did not see any future for the LDA in terms of domestic home insulation and green homes work. Have you changed your mind or has your mind been changed for you?

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 18 March 2009

Mr McGrath, you sound to me really rather uncomfortable in this position over the Olympics. Is that a fair description? Are you feeling uncomfortable and really rather insecure about it all?

• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 18 March 2009

Mr McGrath, you have said that the technique that you are going to use to deal with the fairly obvious shortfall that there would be on capital receipts that have been fed into the calculations for the Olympic Development that you would lengthen the timescales. Can we be assured that that is the only technique that you will be using and we will not try to make up any shortfall by trying to get capital receipts from those areas of the Olympic development that are not currently scheduled to be sold off?

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 18 March 2009

OK, you are very keen on academies. I am completely neutral on the subject, but the figures just do not stack up to me. There are 43 academies in London, and we have got published results for 27 of them, because a lot of them are new and have not yet published. Over 50% of them have achieved less than half the national average at GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education). What I am not clear about is a lot of these are run by some serious players. I mean, we are not just talking fly-by-nights; we really are talking...

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 18 March 2009

If the LDA did act ultra vires, would you expect the lawyers and your auditors to bring it to your attention?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 18 March 2009

I think there would be huge scepticism on all sides of this Chamber and outside this Chamber that the LDA should be getting into funding secondary education. Mr Rogers, you started your answer by saying, 'I believe in the academy system.' Bluntly, what you believe or otherwise is of relevance to your advice to the Board, and I noted you did not answer the question. The question was, 'Has the Board yet considered whether funding secondary education is compatible with focusing on the LDA's core mission?' So can I ask the Chair of the Board to give us the Board...

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 18 March 2009

This whole idea of giving money to academies was one of the Mayor's. He brought it up at a party conference - Tory Party conference - last year and it was also in his Time for Action, his report on youth violence. Now, I just cannot see how this is any different from all the accusations against Ken Livingstone [former Mayor of London]. This is an idea the Mayor has had. It is not part of the LDA's role. You have a role in skills and so on; you do not have a role in secondary education. I do not...