• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 23 October 2002

Could you make that commitment now?

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 23 October 2002

I welcome all of that and I am sure the older people of London will also. There is something much more immediate and important to them that you could help with now, working with the current administration and using your powers over the transport interchanges. Age Concern is doing some work about accessibility of public toilets in Tube stations. Something you can do now is to actually find out (a) why are the public toilets that are there not open? And (b) ensure that building does not take place without accessible, open public toilet facilities. That is something that you...

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 23 October 2002

The statistics are very clear about the problems for over-50s and the tendency of employers to make over-50s redundant and offer that as an option rather than more flexible working. Perhaps you could go back to what you are planning to do, if you are not doing it already, to make the GLA's commitment to be a positive employer of older Londoners a reality.

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 23 October 2002

Thank you for that answer, Mayor Livingstone. Can I, before I ask you a couple of questions just say that the Chair of The Greater London Forum for the Elderly is in the audience and I am sure that a representative of that group is on your stakeholder group. What they have raised with me and what the other organisations like Age Concern have raised with me are really questions relating to quality of life issues. If I put my question this way to you: in your consultation with your stakeholder groups, have you discussed, or has it been raised...

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 23 October 2002

Then could I ask why you are not monitoring the age profile?

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 23 October 2002

I am very delighted that you have made a commitment that the Greater London Authority will be an age-positive employer. Perhaps you could tell us what you have done to make that a reality.

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 23 October 2002

The framework is crucial. Working from LFEPA, I was quite concerned about the huge proportion of elders who are subject to fires. In the conference, are you going to include the functional bodies so that you do have a proper dialogue with, say, LFEPA and the MPA, are they going to be there and talking to people?

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 23 October 2002

You talked about the conference that you are holding; the crux of it is the framework you set up so that you ensure appropriate participation. One of the good things around the work we do is whether a bus shelter is located appropriately so elders can use it comfortably and safely. These sorts of issues are crucial to the quality of life in many of our town centres. How will views of people attending the conference be embedded into a new framework so that the design of buses, location of bus shelter, and the like are properly consulted and participated...

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 23 October 2002

Regarding the money coming through from the advertising and, I am sure, from your Budget, I know that elders are gathering together - there are loads of forums across London - and I know that the Greater London Forum for the Elderly co-ordinates this but they do not have a place to meet. Do you see this as a priority; to enable a group like this to organise together and would you see this as something you could do, to help them find premises?

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 23 October 2002

The Chair: Just as a matter of fact, Peter Hendy was in front of Budget Committee three weeks ago and Transport Committee last week. Graham Tope: I am astounded to discover that only this morning have you learned that age discrimination is a real issue for people of your age and mine and younger and that we have been doing nothing about it. Now you have made that great discovery, do you regret saying when we were first all elected here that you wanted the GLA to be full of bright, young people? Would you now like to suggest that...