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• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 08 November 2006

Am I right in saying that the target for the percentage of time spent on community fire safety at station level has risen from 6 per cent to 8 per cent? Looking at the actual performance last year, over a third of our stations exceeded 10 per cent and one of them, Sutton, according to the figures, spent 25 per cent of their time on community fire safety. Is not 8 per cent really too low as a target, therefore, and should we not be getting the average a lot higher?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 08 November 2006

If some can achieve above 20 per cent, can we not encourage the others too?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 08 November 2006

Thank you, Sir Ken. I think we would all like to congratulate those success stories that you have just highlighted. Obviously the picture we are getting is that it is a patchy performance across London. Would you agree with that?

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 08 November 2006

Thank you very much, Commissioner. I am very delighted to hear that, although I was rather sorry that there was a delay because I can remember at least two years ago when we were in here for a scrutiny session, and you came with your Union Representative and he agreed that there really was no hold up with the Union as to getting this sorted out in London as long as they were not to be sent there instead of an ambulance, to which we, of course, agreed. You have been given £100,000, but none of this has been drawn...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 08 November 2006

Just in case Londoners watching this think that London Fire Service is always locked in disputes about things, I think other answers and briefings we have seen show that there has been massive development of work practices and cooperation, for example, community fire safety work, which I think all Londoners would welcome. This does look like an impending dispute and I am wondering how you see it evolving and being managed and, without carrying your negotiations on in public, what you see as being the bottom line, the problems, the challenges that we face in addressing those?

• Question by: Joanne McCartney
• Meeting date: 08 November 2006

Thank you. Have you done any costings of this? What it would actually cost to start this programme? I want to check the cost of taking out beds to replace them when those beds may be perfectly good ones, plus any ancillary costs on building work that may be necessary.

• Question by: Geoff Pope
• Meeting date: 08 November 2006

The main thrust of the question is about the Government recognising the unique need to protect its capital city from terrorist and major incidence attacks. Is there any sign at all that there is any recognition?

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 08 November 2006

Commissioner, the Metropolitan Police has received some initial funding to help them prepare for the Olympic Games and their resilience thereto. Has the London Fire Brigade received any preparatory monies to help them forward, and to what extent are you involved in the planning for that event when some ten million visitors are expected to go to the Games in a period of about three weeks?

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 08 November 2006

The Olympics are vulnerable from both the river and the canals. Are you involved in protection of the Olympic sites from the river and the canals and do you have the equipment?

• Question by: Geoff Pope
• Meeting date: 08 November 2006

You wrote a very comprehensive letter to the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and got a response from Mike Reid at the Fire and Resilience Policy Division. On two occasions in his letter he says these are `local operational matters'; the question of buying additional fire rescue units. So the Policy Division on Resilience calls this a `local operational matter'. Are we getting through to them at all?