• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

Within the contracts that you are renegotiating as they come up you presumably are putting in things for the drivers? You are presumably watching this and encouraging companies to have good practice towards their employees?

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

We totally agree with the Mayor that the expansion of the bus service has been one of the achievements of the GLA, but can he just say something briefly about his response to the "Transport in Outer London" scrutiny, which Meg Hillier carried out, which pointed out the need for better quality bus services in outer London. What can Londoners in outer London expect from you medium to long-term about improvements in their bus services?

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

The other area that I want to explore with you both is: we received notice of the Peckham bus garage collecting a top industry prize and it is my understanding that there was a TfL award to the Peckham garage for top prize for its service. So we have here an example of excellent service. What I would like to say is can you give us an understanding of how they are learning all the excellent practice from this garage? How is that going to be spread across London, particularly to outer London? The second part of that is we...

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

Clearly, being a bus driver is a tough job and we still have a shortage, I gather, of bus drivers. There is still a shortage of people who are prepared to do that job.

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

But the question was about big numbers, so that people can get the numbers to report.

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

Believe me, I write about twenty letters a day to Peter (Hendy). He writes back; he is very good. We are both working in the same direction. But given that it is not a perfect world and that the training is going to take time, from what you are saying, there are lots of really good bus drivers that have a really hard time. What about other measures, like when someone is lying on the floor, because this happens. A bus driver has driven off and they have been left on the pavement, it is very difficult for people to...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

Can you tell us then about progress on rolling out Oyster Cards to buses in London? Are the readers set up for the cards to be used when people get on buses? How will you make sure that people actually use them, given that people going in and out of the Tube are, at the moment, going through gates without putting their cards across the reader if the gates are open?

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

Okay, I have got a number of questions that I would like to follow on with, Mayor. Can I just take the point that you raised about the problems arising around invisible disability? I am talking about where someone has a disability, either physical or mental, which is not instantly obvious. It is regularly observed that some bus drivers are often not very sympathetic. Can you tell us what is being done in terms of the training of staff and is there an ombudsman? What would you say to organisations supporting these people? How can they make sure that the...

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004