Newsletter December 2005

Published on Thu 15th Dec 2005

Newsletter December 2005

Happy Christmas!

I'd like to begin by wishing everyone a happy and peaceful Christmas and a great New Year. I shall be travelling with my husband to New York to spend Christmas with our son Mark and I am really excited.

My life on the London Assembly has been frantic for the past few months - I am constantly trying to fit a quart into a pint pot but I am lucky because I have great staff. In particular, I've been spending a great deal of time trying to find out what is happening about the Olympics - not an easy task since the bodies involved (the London Development Agency (LDA) and the Interim Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA)) are not the most open and transparent organisations! It takes patience and persistence to get the information out of them but I am getting there.

Committee scrutinies

The Economic Development Culture Sport and Tourism Committee, which I chair, held its first Olympics scrutiny in November. The object is to ensure that London firms can benefit from the Olympics and to examine the barriers that SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) face in bidding for contracts. The London Development Agency and the Interim Olympic Delivery Authority were two of the witnesses who attended and gave evidence. Concerns raised included:

Ø The lack of information regarding the tendering process.

Ø The need for long lead times to enable SMEs to recruit and train additional workers and to develop the 'social requirements' in the procurement documents.

Ø The need for the LDA and ODA to set targets which are enforced and verified, to ensure that SMEs get their fair share of Olympic contracts.

Although the majority of the contracts will not be let until 2008, London businesses are keen to have a 'one-stop-shop' website now, which gives them information on all aspects of contracts and tendering.

I have also met the London Chamber of Commerce and Business Service Association Olympics Group to discuss the issues.

Last week, my committee made a site visit to Manchester to hear about how the Commonwealth Games were managed in 2002. In the New Year, I shall be meeting three of the key people who organised the Olympic Games in Sydney. The challenges facing London are not unprecedented - we need to understand them and share best practice rather than constantly try to re-invent the wheel!

The Olympics is a huge project - the Olympic park alone will be 45 acres larger than Hyde Park. There are two million cubic metres of soil to clean and move; 169,000 seats to fix in nine venues; and a whole village to equip. So there are opportunities for all and we on the Assembly are determined to ensure that London firms get their fair share.

Future scrutinies

A major scrutiny for my committee next year will be an in-depth look at the Paralympic Games. We will be investigating both the demand and opportunities for the Paralympics, to increase disabled people's participation in sports.

But we won't limit our investigation to Paralympic sports. We will focus on access to sport for all disabled people, including people with learning disabilities. In particular, we want to find out what disabled people think of the Olympic plans and whether they address the many barriers to participation that different disabled people face.

We will also carry out our first scrutiny on the cultural aspects of the Olympics.

Committee reports

We have now published our scrutiny reports on the 'Night Time Economy' and 'Casinos in London' - these can be downloaded for free from the internet:

http://www.london.gov.uk/assembly/reports/econsd/night-time-econ.pdf

http://www.london.gov.uk/assembly/reports/econsd/casinos.pdf

We are due to publish reports on 'Apprenticeships', 'Childcare', 'Tourism in Outer London' and 'Access to Employment for the Over 50s' in the New Year.

Police issues

I have continued my visits to the Metropolitan Police's borough commanders across London, to learn how policing in each borough actually works. I am picking up some really useful information, which I will include in my report to Sir Ian Blair.

The Planning Performance and Review committee, which I serve on, has major concerns about the increase in gun crime. There is worrying evidence that the age of the perpetrators is getting lower. The latest challenge for the police is the large number of imitation guns which have been adapted to work as 'proper' guns and which are relatively easy to acquire. Is it any wonder that the age at which people are arrested for murder continues to get lower? So far this year, sixteen teenagers have been arrested for murder - one of them is just fourteen years old!

The full committee of the Metropolitan Police Authority has been spending a lot of time on the Met Police Budget and the re-organisation of the Met Police Force, which is currently taking place. We are still hoping that the Neighbourhood Policing initiative (a dedicated team of six police in each ward in all London boroughs) will be implemented fully next year. But at what cost! The Met draft budget already has large and difficult cuts - more may be on the way to pay for safer neighbourhood teams.

Mounted Police Training Centre

I visited the Mounted Police Training Centre in Esher, which was fascinating. The centre also provides care for horses that get sick or injured in the line of duty. I was amazed to hear that a lot of the horses suffer from back problems triggered by having to stand in one position for long periods of time at football matches, changing the guard, etc. The lack of blood flow to the back often results in a kind of 'bed sore' and it takes weeks of care to get them fit again. The horses are huge but very friendly - I was kissed by a huge 18 hands horse called 'Gloucester' - I have the photograph to prove it on my website - take a look! www.deedoocey.co.uk

Police Marine Support Unit

On a recent visit to the Marine Support Unit, I learned that, in addition to patrolling the Thames 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and dealing with anti terrorism, the Unit works closely with armed police and dog sections to board and search suspect vessels. However, it was the other aspects to their work, which came as a surprise to me:

Ø The unit's Underwater and Confined Space Search Team is responsible for searching underwater, and confined spaces in London. During the visit by President Bush, they had to search all the sewers around the American Embassy, many of which had not been disturbed since they were built! This 'plum job' was mostly done by women police officers because the spaces were so small. What a job! The unit is also expert in body removal and forensic work, and it provided the team that removed bodies from the Underground after the terrorist attacks in July.

Ø The unit's Line Access team carries out searches and rescues on buildings above a height of two metres - 'ordinary' police officers are forbidden from working above these heights because of health and safety concerns.

Ø The unit also retrieves bodies from the Thames (up to 50 a year), and is expert in the decomposition and other effects that the river may have on a body.

There is an extensive and continuous training programme, and all officers gain their Boat Masters License within a year of starting training. In addition, all the unit's divers are trained as commercial divers.

The unit does all of this work with just 78 officers; the numbers have just been reduced from 83 as part of the redistribution of resources within the Met, which aims to have more officers on the street in Safer Neighbourhood Teams.

Local Parties

I have been invited to a number of local parties to talk about the Olympics and I am very keen to discuss how local parties can get more involved with Olympic and Police campaign issues. If you would like me to attend any of your meetings or fundraising activities, please get in touch. I have some interesting slides showing how the event will develop and what the Olympic structures will look like.