• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 10 December 2003

I recognise what you are saying, but the vast majority of the savings have come out of the manageable part of the budget, which is roughly only 30% of your budget as indeed was reported to the Authority yesterday. An HMIC (Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary) report recently criticised the Met for de-civilianisation. That happens because the savings come out of the manageable part which is the civilian part of it. Is not the way in which the police are funded in London fundamentally ill-structured, in as much as the Mayor wants the sexy bit, which is uniforms on the...

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 10 December 2003

I would like to return to the theme question about paying for local policing. Police research itself shows that the contact time between officers and the general public is only about 32-33% of the time they are on shift. If that was raised to 42% that would effectively add roughly 2,000 police to the streets of London. So is not part of paying for local policing the way in which you effectively use what you have already?

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 10 December 2003

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 10 December 2003

The question was about the structural model.

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 10 December 2003

Going back to the increased need for funding and the question of who pays if services are expanded. I think we have noticed here at the Assembly that if we put something in our budget like resilience the Government then does not fund it; the same with the income from Congestion Charging and local grants. Of course, now London funds many of the extra police officers and the Government has rewarded us with a £56 million deduction in our grant. Would Toby Harris agree that the Government cannot have it both ways as we discussed yesterday? They cannot claim credit...

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 10 December 2003

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 10 December 2003

• Question by: Diana Johnson
• Meeting date: 10 December 2003

I would like to ask about the proposals to transfer serious crime out of the Met into a national police force and about the issues around recruitment and retention that might bring. What is your feeling about how Londoners might respond to feeling that they do not have a say in the policing of serious crime in their communities?

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 10 December 2003

But surely even with an expanded service those tensions will still exist between pulling the staff out into central functions even if they are ring-fenced for neighbourhood services.

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 10 December 2003

Far be it for me to make a political point of this, Chair, I was merely asking if you could hold the Government to a promise that they have made, and you have not given that commitment.