• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 27 February 2002

I just wanted to say that this not about a project on the cheap: this is the only site that is available, as I think your officers have now accepted. There is always an argument to be had about what is local and what is strategic. We do not at the moment have a strategic policy on open spaces. The Green Spaces Scrutiny Committee asked for that: we need a strategic framework. It is not very long ago that you were willing to signal that the South Bank Centre could build on Jubilee Gardens. If you are going to make...

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 27 February 2002

There are always two sides to every story. Green space is immensely important for inner-London communities, but the pressure facing Southwark and this community is that at least 40 or 50 kids are not in school at the moment, and enormous numbers of other children are travelling great distances to school - and as you say, there are more on the way in to the system. This is not about a cheap site. From Southwark's perspective, this is the only site that is both available and suitable. The park itself, as you know, will be sports fields, tennis courts and...

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 27 February 2002

But you made the point that it is not just a question of having the green space: it is also a question of looking after it and making it an attractive space for people to use, so that there is no threat to it in the future, with people saying that it is just a piece of derelict ground. Are there any measures by which you could encourage councils to keep these areas in good repair?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 27 February 2002

Your decision on the site at Southwark, I think, was informed by the green spaces report by the Assembly, which Val Shawcross, the Member for the area, has mentioned. The cross-party report, signed by all members of the Committee, stated: "We deplore the purposeful neglect of green space in order to increase the chance of its development. We are also aware that unintentionally" - I am not sure that that word applies in this case - "local authorities might follow the same route, and in those cases we should presume against granting development in such circumstances." Did Southwark council or...

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 27 February 2002

I want to thank you for directing refusal on Paterson Park. Southwark council is under a lot of pressure to do things cheaply, and it was a complete mistake. Also, you are going to be under huge pressure to accept some of these new developments in London. Developers are now choosing to put housing into these school packages: because the schools are so easy to argue for, they are slipping in housing on the back of them. Is that something that you can resist?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

Are you happy to publish that information?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

I don't think that's a very straight answer. The question is about whether it is reasonable for Londoners to have the same transparency on the packages enjoyed by senior executives of Transport for London, as the shareholders do of the senior executives at Thames Water. I think that's the question, not whether the remuneration is too high. I don't have any problem at all with Bob Kiley being paid what he is paid, if he is perceived at the end of his job, to have delivered. Are you happy with the concept of transparency in publishing those figures? You said...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

This has hidden behind a cloak of confidentiality in the past.

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

The reason that you give for paying Bob Kiley so much, and being an experienced transport professional, particularly in the field of running underground railways, demonstrates that we have not had terribly good value so far, because the one thing that Transport for London hasn't done so far is run underground railways. A place where he did, perhaps, provide some value for you was in his advice on settling the Tube dispute with RMT. What advice did he give you and how is he planning to work alongside Bob Crowe when the Mayor keeps undermining the management of London Underground?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

It's not about being unhappy; it's about transparency for Londoners and their money being paid for highly remunerated employees who are doing an excellent job, in many cases. I would like to ask about evaluating what the proper package for those employees is. A lot of companies - and I think it's a flawed process in the private sector - have a Remuneration Committee which evaluates the pay and, usually, it tends to be people who have probably met down at the golf club and agreed how much to pay each other. Do you not agree that for a public...