• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 13 November 2002

It's very welcome that we've received assurances that the majority of the new police officers will be in the boroughs by 31 March.

• Question by: Lord Duvall of Woolwich in the Royal Borough of Greenwich OBE
• Meeting date: 13 November 2002

Can we just take that further? So, what evaluation has the MPS made about how the police are actually used; whether it's the evaluation of police being located in schools, or on council estates, in terms of deterring crime?

• Question by: Lord Duvall of Woolwich in the Royal Borough of Greenwich OBE
• Meeting date: 13 November 2002

Can you tell us about any additional work that you're undertaking in terms of accommodation of those 1,000 extra police and other staff, in terms of physical space, equipment, costs, and have you bottomed out past years' discussions of what the costs are?

• Question by: Lord Duvall of Woolwich in the Royal Borough of Greenwich OBE
• Meeting date: 13 November 2002

Obviously I am aware that the Police Service is responsible for operational issues. What incentives can the MPA give, in terms of deployment of these officers, so we see a less fragmented approach? It seems to me that across London, we see certain divisions doing some very innovative work of locating policemen with secondary schools or based on council estates with crime initiatives. What can you do to give incentives in terms of the budget, in terms of providing these additional police, to make sure they're used effectively?

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 27 March 2002

Tony Arbour's first point is that currently communities don't have much of a chance of getting involved in plan making. The whole process is very obscure and, as most of us know, it takes about eight years to get an UDP in place. The pace of change is utterly glacial. Would you agree then that maybe the right place for communities to get involved in plan making and in the whole planning process is, as is set out in the green paper, in a system which turns over much faster, with local developments, frameworks tied into community strategies and with...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 27 March 2002

I merely observed that that is what happens everywhere else apart from here. I take your point that you only have the power to direct refusal, but those of us who have experience of the planning system know that that is in its way every much as great a power as the power to approve. There is one other aspect of the green paper, which I think ought to have been addressed, and that is the question of planning obligations. You are suggesting that the GLA should have a role in planning obligations, and in effect you are suggesting there...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 27 March 2002

It's not too late, but there are other areas of the democratic deficit in the green paper which we would have expected you to have addressed. For example, the green paper says "90% of planning decisions shall be dealt with under delegated powers". Now that of course is entirely at variance with the view that members of the public shall be entitled to go along and attend Planning Committees. Of course we know they can't attend your Planning Committee, but they should be entitled to attend Planning Committees and make representations to them to say what should happen. Every learned...

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 27 March 2002

Therefore regional planning can also be democratic?

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 27 March 2002

Do you not think though that it's very important for communities to be engaged in owning the direction that London's going in and therefore the way you appeal to the seven and a half million Londoners after the publication of the draft SDS, at the beginning of June or the end of May, is crucially important?

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 27 March 2002

I have a supplementary. How do you see the community engagement in the London plan, which of course is being produced at breakneck speed and will obviously be reviewed, but how do you see community engagement in that for millions of Londoners and their communities?