• Question by: Lord Bailey of Paddington
• Meeting date: 05 December 2024

Len Duvall AM (Deputy Chair in the Chair): Assembly Member Bailey. Lord Bailey of Paddington AM: Thank you, Chair. Good morning panel. I wanted to concentrate a little bit on construction in particular because we all know there are some difficulties there. Does London currently have the construction skills it needs to build 80,000 homes per year as required by Government draft planning reforms?

• Question by: Zack Polanski
• Meeting date: 05 December 2024

Len Duvall AM (Deputy Chair in the Chair): Assembly Member Polanski. Zack Polanski AM: Thank you, Chair. Good morning, panel. Hey, Ann-Marie. You know I am going to be asking you about retrofitting. The Mayor declared a retrofit revolution and, at the time he did, there were more Assembly Members in London than there were retrofit co-ordinators. I wrote a report about it and, in it, one of the recommendations was about making a pathway to retrofit courses. To be totally fair to the Mayor, he has then set up eight retrofit courses in 2024/25 from the adult Skills Bootcamp...

• Question by: Hina Bokhari OBE
• Meeting date: 05 December 2024

Len Duvall AM (Deputy Chair in the Chair): Assembly Member Bokhari. Hina Bokhari AM: Thank you, Chair. I have very limited time so if one person could answer my question. We were discussing disabled Londoners and the additional costs and barriers there are to accessing education. What more is the Mayor doing on this?

• Question by: Alessandro Georgiou
• Meeting date: 05 December 2024

Len Duvall AM (Deputy Chair in the Chair): OK. Let us move on. Just before I bring in the next Assembly Member, can I welcome the Year 9 Politics Society students from Mulberry Schools Trust in Hackney. Hi. Welcome to our deliberations. Let us move on to Assembly Member Georgiou. Alessandro Georgiou AM: Thank you, Chair. Good morning, everyone. Richard, what are the average salaries and average length of contracts of those who finished GLA-funded education courses?

• Question by: Marina Ahmad
• Meeting date: 05 December 2024

Len Duvall AM (Deputy Chair in the Chair): Thank you for that. Let us begin with our first question from the political groups, Assembly Member Ahmad. Marina Ahmad AM: Thank you, Chair. Good morning panel. My first question is to Richard Watts. Richard, the Government is developing a new Industrial Strategy and it has identified the lack of skills as a key barrier to growth and will develop partnerships between business, Government and workers to challenge this. How will the GLA contribute its expertise to the development of the Government’s Industrial Strategy and what impact could that strategy have on...

• Reference: 2024/4382
• Question by: Chairman, London Assembly
• Meeting date: 05 December 2024

Len Duvall AM (Deputy Chair in the Chair): Welcome back. We now move to the second panel for our question and answer session on Adult Skills Fund (ASF). Joining us here in the Chamber we have Richard Watts, Deputy Chief of Staff to the Mayor of London; Ayo Akande, who is the Assistant Director, Skills and Employment - Delivery, Greater London Authority (GLA); and Ann-Marie Soyinka, Assistant Director, Skills and Employment – Policy, at the GLA. There will be a lead question from me as Chair to all our guests. Assembly Members will then put supplementary questions. Please, can I...

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 05 December 2024

Len Duvall AM (Deputy Chair in the Chair): I am looking to Assembly Members. Are there any more questions at this part of the session? OK. With that, we have now reached the end of that. I would like to thank our guests in terms of the contributions they have shared with us this morning. There may well be some further questions that arise from Assembly Members and we might want to enter into communication with you, or you may think, “Hold on, I just want to reemphasise some thoughts”, you can always write directly to us. Are there any...

• Question by: Neil Garratt
• Meeting date: 05 December 2024

Len Duvall AM (Deputy Chair in the Chair): Assembly Member Garratt. Neil Garratt AM: Morning, Aidan. You mentioned just a moment ago about discrepancies in Yorkshire and earlier in your earlier remarks you talked about the lack of transparency in adult skills funding in London. One of the things we have picked up through the Audit Panel here, which I chair, is problems of fraud, money moving down through the system gets picked up by the wrong people and then not spent on students. I do not know whether that is something you have come across or whether your suggestions...

• Question by: Elly Baker
• Meeting date: 05 December 2024

Len Duvall AM (Deputy Chair in the Chair): Let us go to Assembly Member Baker. Elly Baker AM: Thank you, Chair. Morning, panel. I have a couple of questions about the support for disabled Londoners. I know we have talked a bit about this, Assembly Member Bokhari has talked about this. I will just ask a couple of follow-ups on that. Rushaa and Alex, these questions will be to be you. We have talked about the barriers that disabled people face in terms of accessing adult skills support. I wonder whether you could talk about whether there is a mechanism...

• Question by: Alex Wilson
• Meeting date: 05 December 2024

Len Duvall AM (Deputy Chair in the Chair): Thank you. Let us move to Assembly Member Wilson. Alex Wilson AM: Thank you, Chair. Thank you, panel, for the comments you made far and my question is going to be directed largely at Aidan if that is OK. If there is time, possibly Anthony as well, but as you can see the clock is ticking. What I am keen to understand very much - I should also thank you the research unit, it was a very comprehensive briefing, which has been very helpful. What I am keen to understand is to...