• Question by: Brian Coleman
• Meeting date: 29 January 2003

I wonder if I could ask the Deputy Commissioner, I understand the Commissioner, who is not able to be here this morning, received a letter from Nick Raynsford on the subject of London resilience, a further letter. Will the Commissioner be circulating that letter to leading members and the Mayor of London?

• Question by: Brian Coleman
• Meeting date: 29 January 2003

But the letter, if I understand from what you said at Budget, fails to give us the £15 million.

• Question by: Brian Coleman
• Meeting date: 29 January 2003

I understand that the letter was addressed to the Commissioner, not the Chair of the Authority and, therefore, the Commissioner has already given the letter to the Chair. But my question is will the Commissioner be giving that letter to other leading Members and the Mayor of London? Will he, therefore, allay fears that the real reason why the Chair did not want that letter released, is because it will add further political embarrassment along the lines that Mr Tuffrey has already referred to about the Government's failure to deliver the £15 million needed for London resilience?

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 29 January 2003

Have you made an assessment of the extra costs that might be required for investment?

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 29 January 2003

What about the £2 million?

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 29 January 2003

And what about investment in order to modernise? Will there have to be money put in to achieve the objectives of the review, in addition to the imbalance in timing in the modernisation effects coming through on pay?

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 29 January 2003

Finally, on pensions - in what seems a wonderfully naïve paragraph, the report says, "The Government should address the longer-term future of the firefighters" pension scheme, and take early decisions to ensure that suitable arrangements are provided for the new, reformed Fire Service'. Do you have any information as to whether the Government has made any progress in reacting to that paragraph?

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 29 January 2003

The Bain Review also talked about middle managers and their reward structure, saying their terms and conditions should be based on similar principles to those of the main pay group. There has not been a great deal of discussion about this. Are you able to tell us anything about them, and are they included in that £2 million?

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

I don't want to suggest that security should be secondary to the financial implications, and I don't even particularly want to know the financial implications at the moment, but I wonder if you could arrange for members of the Budget Committee, who yesterday were looking at the budget for next year, and that included an increased budget for security, could be informed in due course of what the implications of this might be.

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

It's a regrettable necessity. I wasn't clear whether you were saying that this should now be in place permanently or is this just a response to current warnings?