• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 23 February 2005

Could you tell Mr Kiley that?

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 23 February 2005

I am most impressed by your haughty dismissal of the values of democracy. Is that haughtiness not also shown in the performance of TfL itself? Its reputation with the residents of London and indeed its reputation with Assembly Members is that TfL could not really care less what other people think? Is that not the effect of having a Chief Executive who is accountable to no one, you having agreed ' rather weakly, apparently, in your negotiation with him ' that he should be the man in charge with no accountability at all? This is contrary to all good practice...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 07 December 2005

I am very grateful for your answer, which I will take not only as an answer but also as a very clear statement of the challenges of getting this right. In the interests of getting to other questions on the agenda, I think we could rest it there, with the promise from you that in the New Year, there will be some clarity about how we are taking this forward, which we can maybe examine again.

• Question by: Damian Hockney
• Meeting date: 07 December 2005

Dee (Doocey, AM) earlier mentioned the fact that at Atlanta 40% of the contracts went to SMEs but part of the reason for that is they do not have the EU Public Procurement Directives. The Forum of Private Business (FPB) and the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) among others have all said that the EU Public Procurement Directives are one of the biggest barriers to entry by SMEs to such events as Olympics. Could you just confirm ' also while I agree with John Biggs (AM) about not leading them up the garden path, the trouble is to a degree...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 07 December 2005

Very briefly, hopefully, then. I am wondering if you can help on this. There are many local firms in my constituency and in Jennette's (Arnold, AM) who are tantalised by the prospect of getting contract work out of the Olympics, and we need to be very straight and open and honest with them about what can be achieved and what cannot be achieved. I am interested in hearing about the extent to which you have taken legal advice on how we can work within the restraints of public law and European law and also about the communication strategy of building...

• Question by: Joanne McCartney
• Meeting date: 07 December 2005

I wanted to ask about health and safety because we have had the draft Procurement Principles given to us and certainly the (Assembly's) Health and Public Services Committee was somewhat disappointed that health and safety and achieving good health and safety was not one of those principles. Can I just ask whether you are going to do some detailed work on health and safety and standards and also how you would monitor that not just for the principal contractors but to ensure that those health and safety standards filter down through the various subcontractors that will be used?

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 07 December 2005

I am very pleased, Marc, that you seem to have taken on board an awful lot of what happened at the committee meeting last week. Although it is certainly true that the LCCI said that it was happy with the information it had got, they were referring to a meeting you had had the night before. Certainly, when Bob Blackman (AM) and I went to see them a couple of weeks ago, they were complaining long and loud to people around the table that they had had no information at all. I am delighted to see that you have picked...

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 07 December 2005

That is fine. I was surprised that the LCCI told us that 80% of their members employed 10 or less people and that that was the business profile in London as a whole. I think perhaps more needs to be done to make sure that those people are being included because a lot of businesses that employ less than 10 people will not have somebody dedicated to go on the website and to look for all the information. It is not easy to find information. It is quite difficult. Can I just mention targets? Manny (Lewis) mentioned earlier ' and...

• Question by: Bob Blackman
• Meeting date: 07 December 2005

I note what you are saying about all the activity that is going on to encourage local firms. I accept that we have got to follow the EU procurement procedures and the IOC procedures. However, one of the things that we would want to look at is, has all this activity been a success? What are your success criteria in terms of achieving local contracts?

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 07 December 2005

My final question is about procurement, which leads neatly on to it. The draft Procurement Principles mention a number of key criteria that have got to be met including a list of things like community benefit, local labour and London's Living Wage, which I know the Mayor in particular is very committed to. Could you just explain why the first contract that you have dished out, the one for under-grounding the power lines, you have not managed to get the contractor to agree to pay the living wage and that, according to the ODA, they have just agreed to pay...