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• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 25 April 2007

Finally, given that you have milestones and key milestones and a set date to achieve it, would it not have been better to have set up bonus payments rather than contingency sums, given that is going to be the name of the game - getting to key stages at key times at critical points? Clearly we would rather be giving them money for achieving that, rather than spending their time making those claims, which invariably half the building trade does.

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 25 April 2007

Sir Roy, if we accept the Government figures as the upper limits to the expenditure on the Olympics, I think the key thing is the management of the contingencies. I am worried that we find ourselves in contracts with contractors who then spend most of their time making claims for the contingencies. They are very generous; about 60% of the build costs. I have certainly had that experience of managing projects myself. What do you have lined up in the procurement arrangements with contractors which make sure they focus and achieve the milestones, rather than putting in the estimators to...

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 25 April 2007

You have mentioned the Cabinet Committees that are keeping an eye on this. Surely the building contract and the legality of that will supersede anything that they can decide about which contingency sums can be drawn from or not.

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 19 July 2006

I was just wondering what the impact of the minimum wage has been in London in reducing relative poverty. Clearly, it affects those in employment, rather than those outside it, but I would like some idea of what the experts feel has been the impact.

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 19 July 2006

I understand that there should be a London rate, and I think there has been work done on that, on the living wage. Coming back to Kate (Green)'s point that tax credits are more significant, one of the experiences I have come across is that the bureaucracy of targeted financial programmes can be such that it actually puts off a lot of people from sitting down and putting in the applications that they are perfectly entitled to make. I don't know if you have got any thoughts on that, and how that can be cleared up so that it's a...