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• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 08 November 2006

I agree with that wholly and Members will recall indeed we proposed a budget amendment at this year's budget debate to provide more policing in suburban London. My concern is that many outer London boroughs in the south of London do not have London Underground service at all, or indeed anywhere near them. Whilst policing on the buses is extremely important, in the commuter areas it is actually the overground rail and the stations and the trackside which is of importance. As you have just said, the public do not make much distinction about which type of uniform the police...

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 08 November 2006

OK, but subject to that and to operational needs and local determination, there is no reason why they should not be at times working in the early hours of the morning?

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 08 November 2006

A lot of the problems that occur associated with transport happen very late at night and in the early hours of the morning, often with dispersal, whether that is on late night buses or particularly with taxis and mini cabs. Will the PCSOs be available at those sort of hours to deal with those sort of problems?

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 15 June 2005

Commissioner, you mentioned again a term you used to use about the Balkanisation of policing services. You were always opposed to the accreditation of local authority run neighbourhood wardens or whatever term they use in parks police. Are you reconsidering that view, and will you allow accreditation in London as in the rest of the country?

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 15 June 2005

): I recall two or three years ago, David Veness (former Assistant Commissioner, Specialist Operations, MPS) saying that his biggest problem was the management of complacency, and both of you this morning have referred to that. In that context, how do we know, and how can we convince people, whether the lack of a terrorist incident is due to the success of the anti-terrorist measures or whether the threat is actually being exaggerated, perhaps in the competition for scarce resources?

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 15 June 2005

Thank you, Commissioner. I have just heard it muttered here that it is a very difficult question. It is also a very important question is it not, because I think increasingly young people are feeling victimised. We have had the attack on the `hoodies', search arches in schools, reference to juvenile crime as a `raging social cancer tearing away at Britain' and other such colourful language. The vast majority of young people are as law abiding as their elders. Antisocial behaviour covers a wide range from real criminal activity to just larking about. How the police engage in trying to...

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 15 June 2005

No, I know, that was not what I meant. Although in fact they are, I think, intending to be meeting regularly with ward councillors, and that is part of it. I think the police partnership with local authorities is usually at a slightly higher level than certainly constable, and probably sergeant.

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 15 June 2005

That is very helpful. All of us here are strong supporters of neighbourhood policing, that is a given. We are expecting a lot of sergeants, constables and PCSOs to be on the Safer Neighbourhoods teams. What training and guidance do they get actually in how to go about the interaction with the public, public consultation, and determining what real priorities are for a community, as distinct from the loudest voice in the community?

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 15 June 2005

Is part of that training giving them a better understanding of how the local democratic process works? I use the term quite widely. How local authorities work, what councillors are and do, so it is not something we must assume that police sergeants, even less probably constables, automatically understand. Like most members of the public they do not understand it at all.

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 15 June 2005

We both agreed just now that the importance of the success of these teams rests primarily with the sergeant but also with the constables and the PCSOs, and my question specifically was: what are we doing to help them achieve that, and to understand, I will just put it simply, how local authorities, for instance, actually work?