Search questions

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 21 October 2009

Could I take up one point with you on the whole relative costs of salaries and so on? Mr Higgins, you, I think, serve with seven other directors on the ODA, receiving pretty substantial salaries. Indeed, I believe you, this last year, did forego half of your bonus until 2012. Would it be reasonable for you and your fellow directors to consider foregoing your complete bonus until you have finished the job, and then receive whatever you are entitled to, through the success you have achieved?

• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 21 October 2009

You set the target for 7% of the workforce being previously unemployed. The data that you collected relied on a voluntary question of the staff being employed and only 25% of your workforce actually replied to that question. Are you absolutely convinced that you have hit that target of 7% and that you are claiming 10%? Are you convinced that those are accurate representations of how many people were previously unemployed?

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 21 October 2009

The Mayor, of course, has an aspiration that, wherever possible, the officials should use public transport. Now the media are in Bloomsbury, I believe, near the bullet train, so will they use that? Many of the officials will be close to the Central line. Will they use that?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 16 January 2008

Do you know, I am flabbergasted by this, Deputy Mayor. You have just told us that these low-energy bulbs are in fact a transitional thing, because LED bulbs are going to come in which are going to be efficient, but at the same time your publicity has told us that these light bulbs are going to have a very long life. Clearly it is quite pointless that they should have a long life if something more permanent is going to come along. It is a bit like somebody trying to sell me a Betamax video recorder! The whole thing is...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 16 January 2008

One final thing on this; I believe the whole thing is completely ludicrous. This refers to DIY Planet Repairs. Whenever we switch on any of the computers in this building a big thing comes up with an exclamation mark saying `DIY Planet Repairs'; utterly meaningless. I can well understand why there is an exclamation mark there; this has cost the Council Tax payers of London more than £1.25 million! Can you point to any `DIY Planet Repair' which the Mayor and this campaign have actually achieved?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 16 January 2008

Of the 30,000 a year that you are predicting?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 16 January 2008

Mr Watts, that is not actually true. In the Mayor's press release ' which I suppose in this case is Nicky's press release ' a 63% take-up was predicted, which is four million. Your figure bears no relationship to the press release and the fact that you only made available this tiny number of light bulbs suggests that there was never any truth in the matter at all.

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 16 January 2008

It's very interested to hear you say that all of this is supposed to encourage people to take up these things. The total number of people who have actually taken up the insulation grants so far is barely 3,000 homes of the 30,000. The thing you principally have been trumpeting to make Londoners aware of how they can cut carbon issues has related to the exchange of light bulbs. Now the Mayor in his press release predicted that there was going to be a 60% take up of London's population of that; that is around four million people. I wonder...

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 10 November 2007

You won't be working and planning on the Aquatics Centre alone. You are also looking at the other stadia as well. Are they also going through this natural growth process with the budget?

• Question by: Bob Blackman
• Meeting date: 10 November 2007

Can I ask you what reasons they have given for withdrawing?