Culture, Sport and Tourism Committee

10 December 2003

Item 5 – Theatre Tickets 2004

Meg Hillier (Chair): Can I welcome our guests here this afternoon? Well, two in- house guests, Emma (St Giles) and Rosie (Greenlees), and welcome Paul James, from the Society of London Theatre (SOLT) and welcome back Richard Pulford (Chief Executive, Society of London Theatre), who was here a matter of weeks ago, talking, partly, about this issue.

We have obviously looked at this issue before and we are keen to hear from you today what plans are afoot for the next proposed promotion, Get Into London Theatre, and how that is working. We have seen the evaluation – thank you for that – and I really wanted to ask, first of all Emma (St Giles), one of the questions that we asked you before, and we have been interested in as a committee, is the objective of diversified theatre audiences. Obviously, there is the other objective of boosting the economy in the West End. At what point was the objective of encouraging a more diverse audience first included in the 2003 promotion?

Emma St Giles, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, Creative Industries and Tourism: It was included as an integral part of the campaign right from the start.

Meg Hillier (Chair): I know that Richard Pulford, when he spoke to us last time, indicated that it was perhaps, to some extent at any rate, a secondary priority then, once that first priority had been declared to use the money and to try and use the money effectively for audience development.

That is one of the reasons we are asking the question, because we have got suggestions from the Society of London Theatre that it was not actually integral from the beginning.

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: I think, if one talks about priorities, it is fair to say that the first thing we thought about in putting it together is that one of the great advantages is economic stimulus. That is what was there.

Therefore, it is true to say also that it was secondary. The audience development came along a little later, but I would say probably about 30 seconds’ later. It was, basically, we have got all this money for economic stimulus; it is great opportunity; let us try and do as much audience development as we can with that money.

Richard Pulford, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatre: I did not, if I may say, mean by ‘secondary’, ‘subsequent’.

Meg Hillier (Chair): It came rather late in the day.

Richard Pulford, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatre: The whole project was late in the day, was what I meant by that. I did, I think, also say, particularly with the Royal Shakespeare Company then being with us and drawing attention to the huge investment of time and money that they have made over many years into this kind of

1 work, that for audience development to be at its most optimally effective it needs a long lead time.

It was not that we suddenly thought of this late in the day; the whole timetable, in terms of long-term audience development was a short one.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Can I ask then, Emma (St Giles), whether it was, you felt, a priority from your end as the Mayor’s Office, and SOLT, for you? Who was the driver in that desire to diversify audiences?

Emma St Giles, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, Creative Industries and Tourism: It was joint, between the Mayor’s Office and the Society of London Theatre.

Meg Hillier (Chair): What has the Society of London Theatre done before this particular promotion to try to diversify audiences, then?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: We essentially work as a facilitator and proselytiser for the work that our members do in that area, primarily. We have been doing that for a long time. We have the UK’s most popular theatre website, for instance, and the audience development initiatives, which admittedly our subsidised members more than our commercial ones put together, we helped spread the word and recruit things like that.

In terms of audience development initiatives, we do Kids’ Week in the West End in the last week of the summer holidays, or the Saturday morning Kids’ Club we do at the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden. With the marketing of those things we take great care to try and maximise the spread of who we reach, so it is in projects like that.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Okay, one of the reasons I was asking was because Kids’ Week is an example of something that you are already doing. But perhaps we will come back to this point, because it is an issue that concerns us all as an interest of the Committee.

Can I perhaps go to Emma (St Giles) first – and I am sure others will want to chip in – on preparations for next year’s theatre ticket promotion. The first obvious question: will it be launched in January and what money will the London Development Agency (LDA) be providing?

Emma St Giles, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, Creative Industries and Tourism: The current plan is to launch it alongside the Mayor’s press conference on 13 January, and the funds that are coming from the LDA are £350,000.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Do you think, given what you said at the last meeting and what you have reaffirmed now. That it was a short time to prepare this whole programme last time, that from your evaluation report and current discussions, that there is time to improve on this?

Richard Pulford, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatre: This time we are looking at a scheme which is going to run rather longer, which I think makes it a great deal easier from every point of view, both in terms of its organisation and its specific construction.

Meg Hillier (Chair): When will it run to?

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Emma St Giles, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, Creative Industries and Tourism: Is it worth exploring at this point the audience development plan for the next scheme?

Richard Pulford, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatre: Yes.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Can we just deal with this point and then move on? What is the end time for this campaign?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Essentially, a lot of what we will no doubt go on to talk about will come back to the point that this year we are making a split, as it were, having two streams and recognising that such confusion as there was last year was largely to do with confusion as to the priorities. Was it audience development? Was it economic stimulus?

We are prising those two apart, to some extent, not wholly. The ticket promotion, as it were, which is first and foremost to get people into London and spending and protect jobs and create wealth, will begin on 13 January. A year-round audience development programme will begin at the latest estimate, because these things take a bit longer to put together, will be early March; the first of a series of initiatives to do with that.

We are saying that you cannot do audience development in a six week burst of razzmatazz. What you need to do is actually get down on the ground, at the coal face, and actually work with the experts there in partnership, and that is basically what we will go on to talk about later.

Brian Coleman (AM): Sorry, Chair, I am a bit of a cynic on all this. I think the answer is that you just put on shows that people want to see, do you not? If you put on shows people want to see, you have no difficulty flogging the tickets, at the end of the day.

Meg Hillier (Chair): One of the things in the evaluation was the work of the ticket agency, choosing a ticket agency, and how that was going to work, and improving communication. I was quite interested, and I could go into detail about the marketing and the media issues. Are you confident now that there has been time to address those issues and to improve that from January?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Yes, there are only ever going to be a finite number of companies of large enough size and experience to take a job as big as this. You are essentially looking at three major West End ticketing companies, so we have put out the invitation to tender, had responses, and we are in the middle of discussions with them. However, high on that agenda is how we can do it better than last year. At one level it is a very simple win; it is can we have more people answering the phones, and can we have greater capacity on your server for the website so that everyone can get through on the Internet as well? We are confident that that will be improved.

Meg Hillier (Chair): What about the cost? Last year, roughly, the subsidy out of the £350,000 was just over £200,000, but £87,000 – so more than a third of the amount that went on the subsidy – was on ticket handling fees. I know other people have looked at the cost of ticket handling; it is an issue bigger than this committee’s remit, but that seems a very high proportion of our amount of money.

3 Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Just to clarify that, I believe the £87,000 is in addition to £200,000.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Yes, it is in addition, but I am saying, as a proportion, you are spending this much money on subsidy and the equivalent of over a third of that on ticket handling. If you could actually turn some of that into subsidy, you would be getting quite a lot of bang for your buck.

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Yes, but the figure we arrived at last year of £1.85 per ticket for selling the ticket, manning the phone room, for building us a transactional website, we actually thought was a very competitive rate, and we will be very pleased if we reach that rate again this year, which is not to say there will not be downward pressure on costs. I do not think you will get it for much cheaper than that.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Okay, it was interesting to hear that to buy tickets, it seems quite a big percentage.

In terms of the marketing, what was interesting was that most of the media was targeted at London last year, and most of the ticket sales, 97%, went to people resident in Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland. What are you doing about that sort of media marketing this year?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: This year the focus is going to shift away from London. It will certainly be a London promotion, but this year the lion’s share of the marketing and publicity activity will be in domestic markets, which is the rest of the UK.

In particular, where we will be working hardest, or I should say where Visit London will be working hardest because they are doing the marketing, is beyond the Home Counties, if one can put it that way, that is people who will be more likely to take a train journey in and stay in a hotel for one or two nights and spend more money in the shops and restaurants, because we know, and they have the figures to back it up, that the average spend per visitor to London is much higher for that kind of person than, say, someone from Kent on a day trip.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Yes, that was one of the concerns we had about how you could prove how much people were spending if they were domestic tourists. Have you got a figure for how much extra people spend from outside London? On average, because I know we are talking averages here.

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: I do not, off the top of my head.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Maybe it is unfair to ask you that question.

Brian Coleman (AM): Explain to me then why, somebody from the provinces, presumably fairly comfortable middle class, can afford to come to London on a train, stay in a hotel, go out for dinner and all the rest, needs a theatre ticket subsidised by the London taxpayer?

Meg Hillier (Chair): Can I say it is London Development Agency money, so it is not actually taxpayers’ money.

4 Brian Coleman (AM): I realise it is London Development Agency money, but it is still taxpayers’ money and £200,000 of it is GLA taxpayers’ money.

Emma St Giles, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, Creative Industries and Tourism: We are talking about a shift, though. We as the LDA and GLA are not actually providing any subsidy as we did last year for the tickets. We are only going to be providing funds for the administration fees. Any subsidy for tickets will get on to the audience development, which is going to absorb the £5 ticket, but from £10 to £25 that subsidy will be provided the producers at the theatres, but not by the LDA. That is a big shift from last year to this year.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Does that mean there will be more £5 tickets then?

Emma St Giles, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, Creative Industries and Tourism: That is going to be included in the audience development.

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Such £5 tickets as there are, and there will be some, will be much more highly targeted as part of audience development. You will not be able to just pick up the phone and order a £5 ticket.

Meg Hillier (Chair): So really, effectively, the LDA money is being shifted to audience development, and obviously there is the combined marketing cost, but the economic…

Emma St Giles, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, Creative Industries and Tourism: And domestic marketing.

Noel Lynch (AM): Brian Coleman (AM): In the SOLT evaluation it said: ‘Attracting a diverse audience towards productions with relevance to ethnic communities’. Are you confident that there are sufficient productions in London that would attract a more diverse audience? I prefer ‘diverse’ to ‘ethnic’, actually.

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: I think that is a very fair point, and it comes back to Richard’s (Pulford) point that audience development is much more long term, and it is about, we all recognise, a lot more than saying ‘here is a cheap ticket’. It is about the kind of productions that are on; the kind of actors that are on the stage; the kind of barriers which still exist to many people becoming interested in theatre. That is going to take a long time to shift.

In moving away from trying to do everything with a ticket offer to having a ticket offer and an audience development programme, we are recognising that and we intend to work a lot more with smaller fringe theatres, which do tend to put on things which have a local interest.

Brian Coleman (AM): Things that no one wants to go and see.

Noel Lynch (AM): Maybe in areas like Barnet?

Brian Coleman (AM): Indeed, they just need a huge public subsidy to survive.

Richard Pulford, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatre: The short answer to your question of course is no. There are not sufficient shows. London theatre, of course, is a commercial operation, and it is a bit chicken and egg. It is a very big risk for

5 somebody to take to put on a show for which they are not confident there is an audience. One of the most successful, recently, of course has been Bombay Dreams, and the production company for Bombay Dreams invested enormously in exploring the market in the Asian community for that show and then ensuring that the arrangement for the show, the ticketing and the times of the performances and so on were such as would be likely to be attractive to that particular community.

Having said that, it remained a very, very considerable financial risk, as it turned out that it came out on the topside. It might easily have not have done, so it is a bit chicken and egg. But of course the straight and short answer to your question is no, there are not as many things as anybody would wish to see aimed at the London audience as a whole. It is not a London problem, if I may say so.

If you go to Birmingham, which has a far higher proportion of ethnic minority community members than London does, you will find essentially the same thing. It is a very big problem, and it is not one that London theatre alone can address.

Noel Lynch (AM): You mentioned Bombay Dreams. I think that and three others got the bulk of the audience figures. Is there any way you can get better publicity for some of the lesser-known shows, rather than the ones that are already popular and do not need it?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: I think, within the audience development strand, we can. You cannot, to an extent, notwithstanding some of the comments earlier, buck the market in terms of when people pick up the phone, they will choose which show they want to see.

Noel Lynch (AM): If they know about it.

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: If they know about it, yes. So all we can do is ensure that, in all our publicity, we are even-handed and, if it seems appropriate, yes we try and push smaller shows. Something like Mamma Mia does not need a push, I would agree there.

Rosie Greenlees, Culture Team, GLA: As part of the audience development we also want to do much more in terms of promoting the smaller independent theatres, so we are looking at things like promoting through The Londoner, and other ways in which we can raise the profile of those theatres, because, clearly, then more broadly distributed across the city…

Noel Lynch (AM): Outside the West End.

Rosie Greenlees, Culture Team, GLA: …they do have a slightly broader range of programme, and we have been talking with the Independent Theatre Council (ITC) about how they feel the best way is for us to work with them, and they see that as a very positive way in which we can assist them in raising the profile of the work that they do.

That should actually help in terms of getting to a broader range of people, but also broadening the whole the scheme as well.

Noel Lynch (AM): Broadening it out beyond the West End.

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Emma St Giles, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, Creative Industries and Tourism: This is one of the things that came up last time, about how we would include fringe theatre into this campaign, and for the first time we have been talking to the ITC, and that covers around, I think, up to 200 of the smaller theatres in London. We are going to help promote those smaller theatres for this campaign. Get Into London Theatre has broadened as a brand.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Emma (St Giles) was indicating earlier that there is a whole different strand of work on audience development. Maybe it would be good to lay it out before you continue: where that has come from; where it is at now; and what you see as the aims of it.

Emma St Giles, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, Creative Industries and Tourism: The audience development work is something, as I said before, that we are concentrating on much more strongly this time. This is the undertaking of SOLT, so we have been working with SOLT in terms of putting together objectives and so on. It might be worth SOLT going through the work we have done to date.

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: The first thing to say is we do not claim to have all the answers. We are, at heart, a trade association for major London theatres; so, particularly given the spread of this promotion and the audience development wing, in particular, to fringe theatre, it is incumbent on us to work with partners, and that is what we are proposing to do: to work with the small theatres; to work with audience development agencies which already exist, to see how we, sitting at the centre, can help. Our role is essentially to coordinate and to bring such levels of expertise and influence as we have.

There seem to be five main strands as we see the audience development developing, and, as I say, this will probably kick off in around March and would run throughout next year.

There is a strand, which is called ‘access’, which deals with access and disability issues. This will be to help disseminate information, to work with agencies working in that area, and to fund a series of assisted performances, particularly in the commercial theatre, which would not otherwise have happened. These are things using partners such as Visualise and Stage Text. For people with hearing and visual disabilities, there will be some half a dozen or 10 performances in the year which are specifically for them.

There is a strand which is called ‘family friendly’, which is to continue the work we have done with Kids’ Week and Kids’ Clubs, to try and get more families coming together to theatres. There is a new ticketing scheme, and this is the area where the £5 tickets will apply, for young and probably old people as well, where we do subsidise tickets in order to get the price down to £5. There are lots of little schemes in theatres across London, audience development initiatives, saying came and see our show for a reduced price or free and we will give you a talk, but where do they go from there? This is basically to set a network up to go and see another show and hear more about the width of shows in London. That is how we are targeting that.

Overarching all of that is a strand that will deal with ethnic communities, ensuring that our marketing and our targeting of all these initiatives are effective in those areas.

7 Finally, we have mentioned the ITC, which is kind of the equivalent organisation of SOLT for the small theatres and groups. They want to create a new section, essentially a new website, where all of the small theatres can have their details of what is on on the website, so it is a place for people to go. That does not exist at the moment, so some of the money will be going straight to the ITC to build that.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Okay, you did not actually answer the point about when the first bit finishes – the theatre ticket…

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Yes, the sales window is from 13 January to the end of February, but performances will be until the end of March.

Noel Lynch (AM): A question of clarification. Did you say you are reviewing the discount vouchers or was it just the £5 ones are more tightly targeted?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Sorry?

Noel Lynch (AM): The discount vouchers you gave the last time as a means of encouraging people to come back to the theatre – are you reviewing that?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: For the TKTS ticket booth?

Noel Lynch (AM): Yes.

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: We are proposing to repeat that, and give that to everyone who buys a ticket.

Noel Lynch (AM): It was not that successful, was it?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: 932, or something like that, people came back in the six months following and used their vouchers to buy a ticket at the ticket booth, which is maybe 932 people who would not have come otherwise, potentially. What that was, essentially, was a flawed, I would admit, but at least tangible means of trying to measure repeat business.

We went at it a bit more effectively by telephone, Internet and market research afterwards, but in terms of actually catching the moment when somebody buys another ticket, that was the only way we could practically do that, because we run that booth in Leicester Square. We could not ask 77 different theatres every time someone bought a ticket to say ‘did you get the London theatre ticket earlier in the year’. It was kind of an add-on, but it is no skin off anyone’s nose to get a £2.50 money-off voucher.

Noel Lynch (AM): I agree with you that it would be a useful way of counting it I have used it before myself, but it was not that much of an incentive for people to buy the ticket, was it? Or do you think it was?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Well, they were getting a half-price ticket at the booth anyway, and then we were snipping off another £2.50 and SOLT bore the cost of that, just to help oil the wheels really. Yes, one always wishes one could do more, but I think it was a reasonable deal.

8 Mike Tuffrey (AM): Before I come on to the diversification of audiences, can I just firm up on the economic strand, and I should say I am pleased to hear the public money is not, with the exception of the £5 offers, going into the theatres, because, certainly, my recollection last time round was that, from the point of view of a theatre, if it has one extra person coming who would not otherwise have come, then the marginal cost of having that one extra person is pretty close to zero, so the entire income, albeit significantly discounted on the ticket price, is still profit. I am pleased to hear that public money is being invested elsewhere and in a more focused way.

The question is: what are the performance targets that you are setting? Last time round, for example, there were 3,500 meals and 250 hotel rooms booked through the promotion. What are the actual performance targets that are being set for this going forward on the economic benefit to Londoners?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: I do not think they have been set fully, but we have certainly had discussions with Visit London. This is their part of the campaign. Just to clarify, the marketing, if you like, of the thing quite rightly this year is going through Visit London as the Mayor’s tourism agency to deliver. It makes sense, the prime reason for the ticketing campaign being tourist and economic, to go through them, whereas the audience development money is probably coming straight to SOLT.

They will be setting those targets, but I know that they are significantly higher. To be honest, we really do not know how many people bought a restaurant meal. I suspect that is a radical underestimate. I have every sympathy with the Restaurant Association, with whom we work in trying to monitor this. It is virtually impossible with so many members scattered throughout London. We received how many back? 1,600?

Mike Tuffrey (AM): 3,500 meals and 250 hotel rooms.

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: There was no incentive other than being a good guy and helping the market research for a restaurateur to return those vouchers. I suspect a much higher number actually bought meals, and that is before you even think of people who just had a meal in a different restaurant.

Common sense would dictate, I would suggest, that if you have just got your theatre ticket for half price, you are more likely to go and have a meal as well. I think we radically underestimated the measurement of restaurants. I think the target which Visit London will be coming up with will be significantly higher than that; and ditto for the hotels, because the whole marketing push is in the domestic. We are really trying to get people into hotels, so significantly more.

Emma St Giles, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, Creative Industries and Tourism: Last time we had the Hilton hotel chain. This year Visit London are planning to bring in 250 hotels, with a rail package. The whole package itself is significantly higher.

In terms of the restaurants, I think the same happened with the Totally London campaign. Evaluation of the restaurant spend is very difficult, and one of the things Visit London are going to be looking at inside the whole package are new ways of evaluating, if we can, how that restaurant spend is.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): Good. Again, I would want us to be looking at where that money goes. The same argument applies if you have somebody who turns up to buy a meal

9 who would not otherwise; the marginal cost there is maybe slightly higher, but is still a profit element. I would want to see the public money being addressed where there is so-called market failure in terms of information, publicity and some of the costs of getting the bums on the seats, rather than subsidising the theatres or hoteliers or restaurateurs or so forth.

Meg Hillier (Chair): It was interesting what Mike (Tuffrey) was saying there about how you evaluate it. If you take a different example of newspapers and the discount vouchers you can get on those, the newspapers are incentivised to send them back, because they do not get paid for the newspaper unless they do. Now, you are talking small amounts of money there and a whole different administration system, but it seems to me that it is not beyond the wit of man or SOLT or whoever to think about that. Or Visit London, I guess. We will have David Campbell (Chief Executive, Visit London) in in January.

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Such vouchers as we got back did tend to be from the chains with highly developed reporting systems, the Chez Gerard’s and the Conran’s, rather than the small independent restaurant out in Greater London.

Meg Hillier (Chair): They would send them back if they thought they would not be included in future years, I suspect.

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Yes.

Meg Hillier (Chair): I am sure there are brains bigger than mine that can work all that out.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): On the audience development, can I just push you on the £5 discount as it relates to older people, because your report was fairly questioning about the merits of that. Intuitively I can see that, if one is trying to target people in need, either who do not regularly go or who cannot afford to go or whatever, young people is a generic category who are more likely to be poorer and not going to stuffy old theatres.

Older people as a category would tend to go; so I can see the case for focussing it on young people, and I am intrigued as to what you are actually planning to do with the older age range.

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: The proposal is that we do work with some older people’s groups, as indeed we did in year one, to involve them, but the exact ratio of how many tickets go to whom has not been worked out yet.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): What are the mechanisms for targeting those? If any over 60- year-old can go, that is not targeted.

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Exactly. It would be highly targeted. It would be working with old people’s support groups, which we have worked with – some of them – in the previous campaign. It is basically saying you tell us whom you would like to go, rather than us trying to find a suitable audience there, so we rely on their expertise.

10 Rosie Greenlees, Culture Team, GLA: Many of the theatres already do work with older people and they are particularly targeting those who experience barriers to participation. We would want to work with them to make sure we were reaching the right people.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): That is good. One would not want people to click on a website and say ‘I am over 60’ and then…and so forth.

Finally, on the question of fringe, small, non-West End, we are using these terms interchangeably, can we, just to help me understand…Intuitively, again, there is a difference between fringe, as in relatively small and specialist outer London, non-West End. Last year I think a number of theatres of the non-West End variety were in the scheme, but they were a tiny proportion of the ticket sales. What is your thinking going forward, in terms of including a broader range? Away from the West End, although I understand that is your focus as an organisation, but we represent the whole of London.

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: I think, if you take Get Into London Theatre, the project as a whole now, which actually means next year a ticketing promotion and an ongoing year-round audience development, still under the umbrella of Get Into London Theatre, we will be doing something for as many of those theatres as possible.

If one focuses on the actual ticket promotion, we will be spreading the number of theatres to a degree, but what we cannot do is explode and have, suddenly, another hundred tiny theatres on, because your message becomes so diffuse and the cost of sales of selling a handful of tickets in those theatres doe not make economic sense. I imagine we will possibly add, to that list, another half a dozen or 10 theatres, which are of a certain size. The other element is that they have to, so that we do not have customer confusion, come in with the same offer, and we are selling tickets for £10, £15, £20 and £25 this year. For a lot of those theatres, their top price is only £10 anyway, so it has to be a theatre which charges more than £15 so we can have a discount and say ‘money off at £10’, which limits it.

But there will still be every theatre that was involved last year, and that did, as you say, include some quite small ones, people like the Hackney Empire, the Bridewell, the Lyric Hammersmith, and the Tricycle. They will all be in again, and, I am just guessing, something like half a dozen or 10 smaller Greater London theatres will also be on.

I will finish on this. A very practical thing is that, when you ring up to buy a ticket, we have a voice-recorded message listing all the shows that are available. The longer that gets, the more people will go to sleep and slam the phone. So if you have got dozens and dozens of theatres, and, to be frank, most people want Mamma Mia or The Lion King, we need to help them in a different way, rather than clog up the whole tourism thing.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): Can I just push you on the ‘small’? I absolutely understand that a room above a pub or whatever is not. But there are some – and my knowledge of outer London is not good enough – and whether it is the theatre in Wimbledon, where we actually had People’s Question Time a couple of months’ ago or the one in Richmond, the Churchill Theatre still exists in Bromley, even in Barnet there is probably one.

11 The established outer London theatres - not the fringe, marginal or small - can they not be brought into this thing so that we can get this benefit and make it more accessible? People are not going to come in necessarily.

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: The answer there is yes.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): Another six or something, you said.

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Let me read a list. We have a sister organisation, of which Richard (Pulford) is also the Chief Executive, called the Theatrical Management Association (TMA), which looks after just those theatres and theatres across the UK.

First on our list for trying to involve in London theatre are the ones that are TMA members. If I can just read them - it will not take long. There is the Bush Theatre, the Battersea Arts Centre, Churchill Theatre in Bromley, Lillian Bayliss, Richmond Theatre, Theatre Royal in Stratford East, the Bloomsbury, the Unicorn Theatre for Children, Millfield Theatre, the Polka Theatre for Children, Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch, the Whirligig Theatre, and Wimbledon Theatre. This is the list that we go to first.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): They will be in this coming scheme?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Almost certainly, unless they have a long run of a show which is very cheap to get in.

Brian Coleman (AM): What about the Hampstead Theatre?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Hampstead is already in; it was in last year.

Rosie Greenlees, Culture Team, GLA: In addition to that, of course, there will be the work we have already talked about in terms of the ITC; the promotion through weblink to their website so that people can see what fringe independent theatre is offering.

There is also the promotion in The Londoner, raising the profile of that activity. They celebrate their thirtieth anniversary this year, and we are talking with them about work they might be able to do along the waterfront, celebrating an event inside City Hall as well to mark that. We have got ongoing discussions with them about how we can bring some of those other theatres in as well.

Meg Hillier (Chair): First of all, when we discussed this before, we talked about before and I have been contacted and spoken to a number of organisations that do audience development outside the theatre world, in schools and elsewhere. What are you doing about talking to any of them? Or are you dealing just with the theatres that currently do this sort of work?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: We are very happy to talk to them. In theatre and education there are hundreds of organisations. We do not rule anything out. We are trying to tread a fine line between being responsive and not looking like we are prepared at all. We have identified certain strands, but this is why we will not start until March. The next few weeks will be putting meat on those bones, basically. That is a good suggestion if we can make it practical.

12 Meg Hillier (Chair): One project that came to me was one that provides support for children in secondary schools. In their first three years of secondary schools, for nine terms therefore, they go to see a performance. It could be ballet, opera, theatre – they choose – it is part of the education programme.

It is relatively cheap, if you look at the overall subsidy, and I can provide you with the details. Would you be working with organisations like that? We are talking about diversifying audiences, and if we look at London secondary schools, by and large they are pretty diverse; you will get quite a wide range of people attending and creating a future theatre audience potentially. But obviously the bums on seats bit does not come into it, because they are not going to be big spenders going out to restaurants. It was not really something that was focussed on in the first place.

Rosie Greenlees, Culture Team, GLA: This programme is very much aimed at building on what is already there, so SOLT has a relationship with the Mousetrap Foundation, for example, so we would want to develop that work. Wherever there is audience development work going on in this area, I think we would be talking to them.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Okay, that is very useful. You mentioned earlier the £1.85 per ticket in handling costs that comes out of the money from the LDA. Now, that is £1.85 paid for by the Get Into London Theatre campaign. What does the customer pay for ticket handling? Do you know?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: The customer does not pay.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Anything?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: They pay £10, £15 or £20, but there is no booking fee.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Right, so effectively you are taking the booking fee out; in effect, that is a subsidy.

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Yes.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Well, a subsidy for the customer. But you are absorbing the booking fee?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Yes.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Sorry, it was not quite clear. Then there is the £350,000, just so that we are really clear. We have got the breakdown for last year, the £200,000 on subsidy, marketing and so on. Can you break down how that is going to be spent? We have got the strand of audience development; and we have got the Get Into London Theatre campaign from mid-January to the end of February for booking. How much goes where? Or do you not know at this point?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: That is Visit London’s call, but I think it is fair to say that the marketing of the ticket scheme will be larger than the audience development, because it is a lot more expensive to market in the Manchester Evening News on Piccadilly Radio, because that is the kind of thing they will be doing, than the audience development. The exact ratio I do not think has been set in stone yet.

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Meg Hillier (Chair): Sorry, who is setting that? Visit London will be setting out how it is broken down?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Well, together.

Emma St Giles, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, Creative Industries and Tourism: SOLT together with ourselves. Broadly speaking, I think the marketing budget for Visit London will be anywhere between £150,000 and £160,000.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Right, Okay. So out of the £350,000, roughly a couple of hundred thousand for subsidy and other costs?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Possibly a bit more. There is the ticketing and subsidies.

Emma St Giles, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, Creative Industries and Tourism: Audience development will be circa £100,000.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Let us go back. There is £350,000 coming from the LDA, as there was last year, right?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Yes.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Is there any extra money coming from Visit London’s own resources?

Emma St Giles, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, Creative Industries and Tourism: No.

Meg Hillier (Chair): So it has got £350,000 and then the in-kind subsidy from SOLT and other members.

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Yes.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Which is not cash up-front.

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Yes.

Meg Hillier (Chair): So there is a lot more being squeezed out of this £350,000 this year. Is that what you are trying to say? Is that fair?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Yes, there is. Of course, the big chunk, which is no longer being spent, is on subsidy to the theatres.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Right, so that is the bit that will be re-directed, in effect?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Yes. We have created this new strand of audience development of, I do not know, £100,000, something like that.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Can I ask why you have decided to do it this way this year, compared with how you did it last year? What made the step change?

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Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Well we have listened and, as I said earlier, much of the misunderstanding and such criticism as the scheme received, tended to stem from perhaps a lack of clarity about what the actual aims were and the priority of those aims. It is recognising, with experience, that, while you can do some audience development by marketing a ticketing offer in particular ways, as we tried to last year with young people and ethnic minorities and whatever, there is a limit to what you can do. Audience development, if you are going to do it properly, is a long-term thing. That is why we have moved in that direction.

Richard Pulford, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatre: It is also very expensive. I was just thinking a moment ago, I used to have some responsibility for running the South Bank Centre, and if ten years’ ago the South Bank Centre’s audience development programme had a budget of £250,000 plus six staff at the time, we are not talking about very large sums of money here, in the overall context of a very, very highly diverse London theatre scene.

I think it is very important, if the money is to be well spent, that it is fairly focused, and that one must not really have too grandiose expectations as to what the outcome is going to be. Is it going to transform London theatre overnight? No, it will not do that. It is important to be clear what it is that we are doing. It is enormously valuable, of course. Any additional assistance in this kind of way is very helpful and the leverage is quite high, but I would not wish to overstate it.

The issues that are being addressed are immense. The very phrase ‘audience development’ means, to anyone here you talk to, 25 different things. It is almost like acupuncture, if you believe in acupuncture; it is putting the needle in at the point where it is going to have the most effect.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Okay, as a committee we have made, I hope, some constructive criticism, and I am glad to know that that seems to be taken on board. I am sure it was not just us, but hopefully we made our contribution.

The only follow-up point was that, in the evaluation you highlighted this small early problem – I do not know if it was glossed over – of wheelchair access. Some people who had booked could not get a wheelchair place as part of the offer, and yet you told us it was resolved.

Now, I do not know whether that needs to fit into both strands, clearly audience development and Get Into London Theatre. Are you confident that, if you do need a wheelchair space, that it is not going to be a problem for people this time round? Have you particularly addressed that?

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: I think all the individual instances were eventually resolved, in that they were offered half-price tickets at a different performance. I think, second time around, everyone will be clearer that this must not happen again. It is always going to be difficult, because there are a finite number of wheelchair spaces, which sometimes are sold months in advance, because they are so rare; there are only two in a theatre or four in a theatre.

If they are already sold out for the performances during Get Into London Theatre, it does present a problem, but I think everyone in the theatre management is now and will

15 be completely on message that, if someone rings up and wants those seats, then let us sort it out for them in the weeks following Get Into London Theatre.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Finally, to Emma (St Giles), this is a lot of public money that is going into this, a lot to the benefit of West End theatres. Are you, the Mayor’s Office and the Mayor, demanding anything of West End theatres? We know they are inaccessible and there are problems there. Are you saying that this money has any strings attached? Or do you hope that they will adjust their practices, buildings or whatever to meet some of the criteria that you have outlined in audience development, for example?

Emma St Giles, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, Creative Industries and Tourism: It is an ongoing issue, and it is certainly something that is addressed in cultural strategy. It is not directly attached to this campaign, but access to theatres and cultural institutions is something that is an ongoing issue that has been raised. But for this particular campaign, no, there are not strings attached.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Is that something that might be considered? I do not know what other committee members feel, but it seems that, if this amount of public money is going into something, that the Mayor could be perhaps a little more demanding.

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: I will actually pass over to Richard (Pulford) in a second, but I do not think any amount of nagging from the Mayor or otherwise would raise it as an agenda item for us. As witnessed, the Theatres Trust has just published a report, which actually looks at these issues.

Richard Pulford, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatre: I think I referred to this briefly last time I appeared in front of you. We are very conscious that London theatres, which were, by and large, built 100 years’ ago, are not conducive to the kind of access arrangements that one would take at absolutely first base if you were building a new theatre.

The cost of making changes to improve visitor access is very considerable. The Royal Opera House, for example, has spent millions on that alone and was still unable to provide wheelchair access to certain parts of the house. The costs are huge, and there is a certain amount of concern that it is all very well being able to get people into a theatre, that is comparatively straightforward, you could always produce muscle if necessary to help people to get into the theatre. But if have an emergency, how do you get them out?

Unless you can do the latter, then being able to succeed in the former may cause more trouble that you think you are trying to solve, but the costs of doing it always run into millions, and we have identified a minimum need to spend a quarter of a billion pounds on the 40 commercial theatres in the West End over the next 10 to 15 years. That will not, I am sure, be enough to ensure, probably in some cases nothing could ensure, that all of the theatres will have total access for people with physical disabilities to all parts. However, some are such tightly restricted sites that it simply is not possible.

Meg Hillier (Chair): It is very peculiar in this committee that Angie Bray represents the area with the highest number of theatres concentrated, certainly in the UK; and I represent the area with the two most accessible theatres in Europe, Sadler’s Wells and the Hackney Empire.

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Richard Pulford, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatre: Hackney has had money recently spent on it, and Sadler’s Wells has been completely refurbished.

Meg Hillier (Chair): The point about the strings attached was not so much about…obviously, physical access is a point, but about other access. If public money is given out, there would normally be certain criteria attached to any grant funding, and that certain equality measures are met. I did not know if there were any softer issues that the Mayor is requiring out of this, or will think about.

Rosie Greenlees, Culture Team, GLA: Certainly, that is why we were keen to see access as one of the five streams of audience development, because there are others, putting wheelchair access aside, the whole issue about Stage Text and Vocalise work that can be done for those with visual and hearing impairment, there is more that can be done in that area.

We are looking at that anyway within the Culture Team, and it seemed to us that it therefore made absolute sense to make sure that that was a feature of this year’s programme, and we will be doing that. So, from that point of view, yes, there is a connection and we will be looking to see that happen.

Richard Pulford, Chief Executive, Society of London Theatre: In that particular connection, leaving aside access to those who have a physical handicap, it was a month ago that the Society (of London Theatre) arranged a major forum for its own members, with demonstrations of the techniques of Vocalise and Stage Text. Of course, the Disability Discrimination Act is there and these things are not optional for the future. In the early New Year, we will be issuing some notes for guidance, not only for London members, but also, in my other organisation, to members throughout the UK, on things that they need to do.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Can I thank you very much indeed for coming along? I must say I am quite excited about some of the proposals that are coming out, and we shall obviously keep a watchful eye, and may want to have you back again maybe when the audience development strand is more firmly throughout.

Can I just ask about assessment and evaluation? Presumably you are going to have an ongoing evaluation. Can you give us any times or deadline when those will be coming out, so we can keep an eye out?

Emma St Giles, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, Creative Industries and Tourism: I don’t know in terms of evaluation but certainly the budget that we are putting forward this year is substantially higher than last year; I think last year it was about £7,000.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Sorry, that is for?

Emma St Giles, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, Creative Industries and Tourism: The evaluation, and I think this year…

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: It will be about £20,000.

Emma St Giles, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, Creative Industries and Tourism: Anything between £20,000 and £25,000.

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Paul James, Society of London Theatre: Yes.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Will there be evaluation of both strands?

Emma St Giles, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, Creative Industries and Tourism: Yes.

Meg Hillier (Chair): At the same time? Well no the second strand is longer.

Paul James, Society of London Theatre: It is very different. It is a learning curve for us how to evaluate audience development, but I think there are skills within this building and the LDA that will help us with that. All we can do is commit to using those tools. It is much easier to count the number of hotel rooms; well, restaurants is hard.

Meg Hillier (Chair): We will keep an eye out, keep in touch and drop you an e-mail, or you can drop us an e-mail when you think something might be happening. That would be very helpful. Thank you very much indeed for coming.

Item 6 – New Year’s Eve 2003

Meg Hillier (Chair): We now have our next set of witnesses for stage two; we are going to be discussing New Year’s Eve. Can I welcome you back (to Professor Lola Young and Jude Woodward)? It was a year ago that we were discussing the same issue, obviously a perennial theme.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): Yes, I have got a couple of questions on the money. But before we get there, I would just invite you to tell us what actually is being organised for New Year’s Eve. In fact, before you do that can I just say that, lest this session gets grumpy, because I feel a bit grumpy because I have had about three goes at trying to get to the bottom of this, that, certainly for myself, and I think I speak for the Committee as a whole, we are very supportive of trying to organise something appropriate and safe for London on New Year’s Eve, commensurate with Londoners’ expectations and, indeed, our place in the wider world.

However, I am somewhat frustrated at what has been happening historically. Could you set the scene for us and tell us what is being organised for New Year’s Eve?

Professor Lola Young, Head of the Culture Team, GLA: Okay, thank you. If I could just preface the remarks that we are going to make by saying that we see this as the start of a first phase of the whole development that will take place over a number of years to bring London, as it were, up to speed with a whole range of other cities. So it is not to be seen simply as an end in itself this particular year.

What we are looking at is a package of activities over that period. Because clearly I am not involved in every single detail, I am going to hand over to Jude (Woodward) to answer most of the questions, but obviously I am going to be here for anything you want to address to me specifically. So I will ask Jude (Woodward) to talk about the operational side, if I may. Thank you.

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: Perhaps I could ask you to clarify your question. When you are saying: ‘What is being organised for New Year’s Eve?’ most of

18 this is in the public domain. The first step, which the Mayor announced early in the year, was to organise 24-hour transport. We have been working very closely with Visit London to put together a very large tourism package to promote London at New Year’s Eve.

You may have seen the publication that was produced in a total of seven million copies, which went out with some national Sunday newspapers the Sunday just gone, and went out with a number of regional newspapers.

5.7 million were circulated in the UK and 1.3million circulated in France and Germany and translated into those languages, profiling all the events, clubs, venues, restaurants etc, who were organising events over the New Year period, coupled with hotel offers and advice on where to stay, where to go and suggested days in London, which are not confined to central London, but cover different parts of London.

Their dedicated website went live on 1 or 2 December; the Visit London New Year’s Eve festive season website went live advertising 14,500 different venues and events that you could take part in over the holiday period. As you know, and is in the public domain, that will be supplemented by a lighting and firework display at the British Airways London Eye.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): That is helpful. The reason I ask what is going on is that we asked the Police Commissioner, Sir John Stevens, this morning what his policing plan for New Year’s Eve was, and he basically said he did know because he did not know what the final plans were. Therefore I rather took it that if the police chief does not know what is going on in London on New Year’s Eve, I could not very well be expected to. That is helpful to have spelt out the four – well, three – elements: 24-hour transport, promotion and fireworks.

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: There is also our support to the Brighten Up London project, which is being sponsored by Orange, I believe, and organised by the company Ten Alps, which is lighting up a whole number of buildings around London progressively through December and all of them will be lit on New Year’s Eve.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): Okay, we are coming back to that one a bit later. In terms of the promotion, the cost associated with that is £1.8 million?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: The promotion by Visit London? Yes.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): Is it really effective to start trying to spend that sort of money getting people to decide what they are going to do over the holiday period through a flyer that went out last week, for example? Is that not leaving it far, far, far too late, in terms of trying to attract people into London?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: Well, I think you would have to address that question to Visit London, but I think it is a very well thought out campaign. It is more than a flyer; it is a magazine.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): I only ask the question, because again, part of the grumpiness, from me anyway, is that, Lola (Young), you said this was the start of a package, but in terms of the Assembly, we did a scrutiny report back in 2000/2001 on the then New Year’s Eve, and said things need to be planned and thought about and so forth.

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We did another one a year ago; so it is somewhat frustrating when from our side we want things to happen and happen well, for it to appear to be, as it were, starting now. I do not think you quite meant it like that, but it is just frustrating that what is happening this New Year’s Eve has not been planned in the spring, for example.

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: It has been planned all year.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): Well.

Brian Coleman (AM): Five minutes on the back of an envelope. I do not think that is quite an obvious plan.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): I have to say that, personally in terms of my family, that if I was deciding what I was doing at Christmas and the New Year, as I was, I do not do that on the second or first weekend of December; I do it a lot earlier. That is promotion.

Can I just enquire about the fireworks? How much are we spending on the fireworks?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: On the fireworks as such, or putting on the whole thing?

Mike Tuffrey (AM): Well, on that event – the fireworks and related…

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: £1 million.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): £1 million on the fireworks? On the fireworks?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: On the whole package; on that part of the package.

Meg Hillier (Chair): The London Eye package, as we call it for shorthand.

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: The London Eye and a whole lot of related things that have to happen in relation to that, to ensure crowd safety etc.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): Does that include the policing?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: There are some costs that are associated with that, but the police… the normal costs that the police would meet on a normal New Year’s Eve are not included in that.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): Can you just tell us what the package consists of? The fireworks themselves are presumably three minutes at midnight and thereafter. What is the rest of it?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: The rest of it is all the crowd safety, the other infrastructure that has to be…

Brian Coleman (AM): Chair, that is therefore the costs of the fireworks, really.

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: Fine, yes.

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Meg Hillier (Chair): Can you break it down? If a significant amount of that £1 million is on other things, can you just break it down for us, even if it is in approximate amounts? Is it half of it on fireworks?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: I would not like to be guessing about those. I do have a budget, but not in front of me, and I would not like to try to remember here and now.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Can we have that budget? Is it broken down in that way?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: I do not know whether that is yet…it is not yet a final budget, and will not be until after New Year’s Eve.

Brian Coleman (AM): I am sorry, Chair, we have the final budget after the event?

Meg Hillier (Chair): You have got the budget allocation, okay, and you have let the contracts?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: Yes.

Meg Hillier (Chair): So you know what money is being spent? David Campbell, who I heard very interestingly on BBC London on Friday of last week, I think it was, talked about a third of a million going on fireworks.

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: I would have to check that.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Okay, but you could provide, after this meeting in the next 24 or 48 hours, a list of what money is attached to…

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: I will find out whether I can give you that, and if I can, I will, yes.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): The total cost is £1 million for what? A three or five minute show? In the past the Mayor has told us not to come into central London and, indeed, last year he said he would be tucked up in bed with his cocoa. Is that his advice this year?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: It is not as simple as that. We are saying, through the whole Visit London promotion, take advantage of the many clubs, pubs and other venues that are organising special New Year’s Eve events. These are not just in central London; they are all over London.

There is 24-hour transport; this is the year that you can take advantage of that. You can organise your own party, you can go to your friends’ parties and be able to travel home safely. We are recommending that you do not travel into central London unless you have a very definite plan for the evening.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): I understand and we welcome the broader push away from just midnight to the whole period, and that is great. But the fireworks will be at midnight, they will be in central London, there will be screens in Trafalgar Square, yes?

21 Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: Not specifically in relation to those fireworks; there are always screens in Trafalgar Square.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): Sorry, there are always screens in Trafalgar Square? Related to the television?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: Related to crowd safety and other messages, New Year’s Eve messages, and I think they carry the countdown to midnight – those sorts of things.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): All I am trying to get to is what the Mayor, the police, if they knew, and the rest of us, are meant to be saying to Londoners around the midnight period on New Year’s Eve, in terms of central London?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: I think I will just repeat what I have said, which is that there are many things to do in central London. We would advise, if you are travelling into central London, that you have a plan for the evening, which includes a ticket for one of the clubs and venues, because, for example, if you travelled in just to see these three minutes of fireworks and then find there was somewhere else for you to go, because all those venues at this time are ticketed.

We would suggest, if you want to come into central London, you should have tickets for an event and have a very coherent plan for the evening. We are not saying you absolutely should not come in just for the fireworks, obviously, but people will want to think carefully about whether they want to come in just for a three-minute firework display at midnight.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): Who will be switching them on and from where?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: They will be switched on by our contractors at wherever they get switched on.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): So there will not be a switching on event?

When you were here last time you talked to us about the public order issues and were very against the idea of having a central London thing that everybody flocked to. I do not quite understand that.

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: I do not think that is quite a correct representation. I said that last year there was not an organised event in Trafalgar Square, which was the question that I was asked.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): Okay, just on the money, because I know other members will have lots of other questions. On the 24-hour running transport, am I right to be putting £1.7 million against that?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: The answer was given in response to a question in the last mayoral questions, and that information was got from Transport for London. It is not our information from the Culture Team, but let me just check. Yes, the information given in response to the question was 1.7 million.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): There have been other estimates.

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Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: I cannot give you any more information than that.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): Okay, it is just that there has been a figure of £3 million knocking around, but we can pursue that. So, £1.7 million for the transport, £1.8 million for the promotion, £1 million for the fireworks, plus policing to be determined. That would be the total package of spending? There is nothing I am missing in that? Fine, thank you.

Meg Hillier (Chair): I was wondering if it was possible to get a copy of the breakdown of the budget while we are in this meeting? It would be much more useful if we have it in front of us while you are here to answer questions.

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: I would have to seek guidance whether I can give it to you. That is why I say I do not know whether I can get it to you in 24 hours, so I will seek guidance on whether it can be given to you.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Okay, I am not particularly fingering you on this, Jude (Woodward) or Lola (Young), but it is sometimes very slow getting information. I hope that we can get that as quickly as possible, because we have a Mayors Question Time next week, and we can perhaps pick up those questions with the Mayor if we cannot do it here today.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): But if there has been a £1 million contract let, that will have been signed; and there will have been a Mayoral Approval Form (MAF) …

Meg Hillier (Chair): It is a break down.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): …which should contain enough detail, because otherwise the Mayor should not have signed it without enough detail to know what he was signing.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Good point.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): That should be on file and could just be pulled off, can it not?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: As I have said, I will have to seek guidance whether I can give this to you; whether there are commercial considerations or whatever. It is not a matter of whether it exists or not.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Actually I have just been advised that we have requested that Mayoral Approval Form, and waited several weeks and not received it.

Brian Coleman (AM): I wonder why?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: You would have to take that up with the Mayor’s Office.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Right, it comes from the Mayor, and the Culture Team does not have a copy of that MAF?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: We do have a copy, but it is released to you from the Mayor’s Office, not from us.

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Meg Hillier (Chair): Sorry, it is public information. I am not beingdifficult with you – but it is public information, a Mayoral Approval Form.

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: Yes, but that is the procedure.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): We have asked for it two or more weeks’ ago. I sit on the Budget Committee, and almost as a matter of routine we have this information, albeit as a confidential item, but as a member of committee, it is perfectly proper to ask for this information and be given it.

Meg Hillier (Chair): I think you are right. I think we would all agree, and there is obviously a very interesting issue here about procedures. If these things can only come from the Mayor’s Office, it puts officers of the GLA in a very invidious position, in fact, because you have got public information and you are not able to release it. We can perhaps explore that elsewhere.

Brian Coleman (AM): I am totally confused, of course. I am so confused that last night I watched Simon Harris’s report on Carlton Television, which told us there was a two-minute firework display and the Mayor advised nobody to come into central London. I thought I must have got this wrong, or Simon Harris must have got this wrong, so I watched a BBC News report half an hour later by Tim Donovan, where he said very similar things. Both took a very disparaging tone to the event, and frankly I am not surprised, because we have here totally muddled thinking.

You tell us that this will be a two-minute, or is it three-minute, firework display, and that nobody is recommended to come. Yet you are looking at spending £0.75 million on associated crowd control and other measures around that event – an event you are suggesting nobody comes to and is only being put on for the benefit of television cameras, we were told by the Mayor.

Professor Lola Young, Head of the Culture Team, GLA: Sorry, I do not quite understand the question.

Brian Coleman (AM): The question is why do you need to spend £0.75 million on crowd control and other matters, bearing in mind you say that the actual fireworks are only going to cost £0.25 million?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: I do not think all of the other expenditure is crowd control, but there are…

Brian Coleman (AM): The question is: for our million and the other costs that Mr Tuffrey has explored, we are getting a two or three-minute firework display. There is not other entertainment as well; there is not a whole package. The firework event is costing £1 million, but the actual fireworks are only costing £0.25 million.

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: I said that I couldn’t confirm those figures to you without checking [inaudible].

Brian Coleman (AM): I am sorry, but are Londoners getting value for money here?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: Absolutely.

24

Brian Coleman (AM): Why? Explain to me how £1 million on a two-minute firework display only visible on television is value for money.

Professor Lola Young, Head of the Culture Team, GLA: I think one issue here is the context and the cost of such displays. It has to be understood that, for example, on Millennium Eve the cost of the fireworks was something in the region of £40 million.

Brian Coleman (AM): Chairman, I do a nice 20-minute display at the Friern Barnet summer show for £1,200. I am well aware of the cost of a firework display.

Professor Lola Young, Head of the Culture Team, GLA: I had not finished what I was saying.

Meg Hillier (Chair): If you could let the Head of Culture please finish

Professor Lola Young, Head of the Culture Team, GLA: I am not prepared to be interrupted because it is quite difficult to hear and I was not quite clear what the question was. I attempted to answer the question.

Meg Hillier (Chair): If you could let the Head of Culture finish.

Professor Lola Young, Head of the Culture Team, GLA: As I say, to put it in context, the cost of Millennium Eve fireworks was something around £40 million. Of course, nobody is saying do not come and see it, but clearly with an event that lasts such a short space of time, and indeed it is. You cannot just dismiss the fact that it is something that is meant to be a televisual event.

The point is, as a number of people have said, it is important to ensure that London holds its position or marks out its position as a world-class city. One of the ways of doing that is, at New Year’s Eve, it is customary for there to be television shots around the world of the ways in which different major cities are celebrating New Year’s Eve. So in terms of that, we think it is good value for money.

Noel Lynch (AM): On value for money and so on, why has there been so little advance publicity?

Brian Coleman (AM): Because they knocked it up on the back of an envelope in the last couple of weeks.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Brian (Coleman), Noel (Lynch) is asking questions of the Culture Team, who have agreed to come to this meeting.

Noel Lynch (AM): Why has there been so little advance publicity?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: I think the answer lies in what we have been saying, which is that this is seen as primarily a television event. While evidently a number of Londoners will want to come down to see it live, it is not primarily being organised or promoted as something that the best way or the most advisable way to see is to go and see it live.

25 Therefore, we are not promoting it as a visitor attraction, in the sense of ‘people, come on down, this is the main thing to do on New Year’s Eve’. It is something that is going on on New Year’s Eve. It will primarily have, we hope, a huge televisual impact, but, at the same time, obviously Londoners are perfectly free to come down to look at it, and there will be the infrastructure in place to allow for that. But we are not engaged in a promotion of that as the prime thing to do on New Year’s Eve.

The promotion of what to do on New Year’s Eve is the other things that I have outlined: 14,500 venues, clubs and different things that are being through the Visit London website and are flagged up in the Visit London publications. We are saying that London is a fantastic place to be on New Year’s Eve. There is this huge offer in London, and we advise you to take advantage of that. We want to work with Visit London to attract visitors into London as well to take advantage of that.

Noel Lynch (AM): We are blowing various millions – anything between one and five million, by my calculations – on a three-minute event that we are not asked to go to, and bugger all else, basically. There are 1,500 events, which have not been advertised apart from on a website. I have asked everybody that I know in the last few days what is going on, and nobody knows what is going on. The Chief Superintendent did not know what is going on this morning; and if he does not know then what chance do the rest of us have? Basically, it is a total waste of money and a total balls-up.

It is really a waste of money. Why would it not be better to scrap it if it is this bad? Have you had any consultation with Londoners about what events they would like? Where are the events? Should all the money be blown on three minutes in the centre of London?

Professor Lola Young, Head of the Culture Team, GLA: I am sorry, Chair, but I feel that we have already addressed the main point of that particular question. I do not want us to repeat ourselves.

Brian Coleman (AM): You have not addressed it at all!

Professor Lola Young, Head of the Culture Team, GLA: Excuse me. The other thing I have to say, and I am very sorry to say this, but really, of course we are here to answer to you and to receive constructive criticism, but it is actually being made quite difficult by what I would call a little bit of rudeness.

Brian Coleman (AM): You are officers of this authority; you are responsible to Londoners. Do not lecture me, madam!

Professor Lola Young, Head of the Culture Team, GLA: I am not lecturing anybody.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Brian (Coleman), put your comments through the Chair please. You, I know, believe in protocols, Brian (Coleman); there is a Chair, you can put your comments through the Chair and indicate if you wish to speak.

Brian Coleman (AM): Officers of this authority, paid for by the taxpayers of London.

Meg Hillier (Chair): As Professor Young is also indicating that she wishes to speak, and therefore if we can just abide by the normal courtesies of a meeting, that would be

26 much preferable to ribaldry and any rudeness, as Lola Young has said. Sorry, Lola (Young), if you would like to finish.

Professor Lola Young, Head of the Culture Team, GLA: All I was trying to say was that I think we have already answered the question, in the terms that we can, and I do not think we can elaborate on that particular issue any more, unless you want to add to that.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Can I pursue the policing issue further? We did have an interesting exchange with the Commissioner this morning. He was very clear that discussions were still ongoing. Jude (Woodward), you both specifically talked about the crowd safety issues and the fact that people are not going to be turned away if they turn up for the London Eye and see the fireworks and lighting display. Where are discussions at with the police? How long have those been ongoing, and when will there be a resolution? I gather there is a meeting on 18 December – is that the date when we and the police will know what is happening and we will get an idea of the cost of policing as well?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: I cannot answer for policing, nor for the channels of communication within the Metropolitan Police. What I can tell you is that there was a full table top meeting to plan out the operations for New Year’s Eve on, I believe, 18 November, which was attended by someone from my department and from all the different agencies etc.

Those plans are always updated right up until New Year’s Eve itself, but that planning, as far as the police are concerned, is exactly where it would be, and where they would expect it to be. They have not indicated to us that there are any issues that they consider to be unresolved. However, the discussions and detailing and fine-tuning will carry on right up until New Year’s Eve itself.

Alongside the police’s own planning, the transport authorities’ own planning, we have specific operations planning and safety groups involving all the agencies in relation to this, and they are exactly where they would be expected to be at this point, in terms of a resolution of issues, permissions, agreements and what needs to be done. That process is not finished and will not finish, finally, until very near to the event itself, but that is totally normal. It will reduce to very small things that need to be resolved. In actual fact, we are already at the point where it is small things, but we are constantly assessing the situation.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Are you having those discussions… you have a particular borough command that has the London Eye in its area, but obviously it affects other boroughs, or is it the Met centrally?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: It is being organised centrally from New Scotland Yard.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Right, can you give us an idea of the rank of person who is [inaudible]?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: It is being organised by the Public Order Branch, CO11.

27 Meg Hillier (Chair): Thank you very much for that. I wanted to move back to this issue about the contracts and the money and how it is being spent. How are you managing the contracts through the GLA? Is it that you contract it out and let the lighting expert deal with all the detail? Who is doing that negotiating? Is it the Culture Team; is it from the Mayor’s Office? Can you just give us a flavour of how that is working, please?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: In the way that we oversee all our events contracts; it is built into the contract itself that there is a monitoring and liaison risk assessment against every single component, both an overall risk assessment and risk assessments against each individual element. That is assessed through regular meetings with the liaison team at the GLA, which is through my team but we report also to the Mayor’s Office.

Meg Hillier (Chair): So you are not micromanaging it but you have set the contract from the beginning, and you will evaluate it after the event?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: We meet weekly. Probably more than weekly, actually, but from the point of view of formal liaison, weekly.

Noel Lynch (AM): Yes, Trafalgar Square – what role will that play on New Year’s Eve?

Professor Lola Young, Head of the Culture Team, GLA: Well, I think it is a traditional London thing, is it not? Any number of people will want to go to Trafalgar Square to celebrate the new year coming in, and I would imagine and anticipate that that is exactly what will happen, as in previous years, that a number of people will come down to that part of London in order to see in the new year.

Noel Lynch (AM): But there will be nothing special there.

Professor Lola Young, Head of the Culture Team, GLA: No, there is nothing specific.

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: The National Gallery will be lit up as part of the Brighten up London campaign.

Noel Lynch (AM): The GLA’s business plan for 2003/4 states that Trafalgar Square will play a major role in the Mayor’s plans for the New Year’s Eve celebrations. Is it not?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: Trafalgar Square traditionally does play a central role in the New Year’s Eve celebrations in London, but apart from, as I said, the lighting up of the National Gallery, there is no specific new event there.

Noel Lynch (AM): There is nothing being planned for outside central London.

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: There is the Visit London promotion of 14,500 events and venues around London, which are organising…

Brian Coleman (AM): We have no idea what they are.

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: …New Year’s Eve or other events around that period. People are specifically, within the website, directed to ways to spend New

28 Year’s Eve outside central London, with little itineraries and ways to spend a day and ways to spend the evening.

Noel Lynch (AM): What was the number? I did not catch it – 14,500?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: That is the number I have been given.

Meg Hillier (Chair): I think we can take that as an approximate figure.

On the number of events outside central London, Noel (Lynch) has hit upon an important point, because the Mayor has indicated previously that, and I think we have got some sympathy and understanding about the safety issues of cramming a lot of people into small venues like, say, Trafalgar Square.

There are, though, other events like Princes Street in Edinburgh. The Edinburgh Hogmanay is very well run, and there are places outside central London that could conceivably be used. The Mayor did indicate more local events, perhaps even family events early in the evening. Was there any consideration given to that sort of approach to New Year, as part of the package of the 14,500 this year?

I think there is a point that has been made about how people know about this, and it is a very micro level that we are talking about, with your local venue or the nightclub you might go to. But if you wanted to go somewhere on the spur of the moment, it would be quite difficult, from what you are saying, because they are all ticketed, planned events. Was any thought given to any other approach, other than the promotion of small venues?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: I would reiterate what Lola (Young) said, which is that we are taking a step-by-step approach, which is, obviously you can disagree with us, but I think our approach is that, to have an iconic celebration of New Year’s Eve in London, you have to have at least a central London iconic location, which is newsworthy and media-worthy etc. We want to build on that, in the way that you indicate, so that that is not the only thing that is gong on and that there is a range of attractions that people can participate in in London.

But each of those has to be a separately managed event with its own costs associated, with its own policing associated, and there are a whole number of issues that would have to be addressed. We need to build that up through a series of steps, which is how Edinburgh has arrived at the situation that they are now in.

Meg Hillier (Chair): So is this something that is an aspiration for the future? Have you got any idea of times? You talk about building steps; are we talking about a five- year plan, to pluck a figure at random, or what?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: I do not think we are at that. I think we will assess what happens this year, and look at how we can build on it for next year. We have aspirations and we will see how that works its way forward, working with all the agencies involved and finding out what the people of London think as well.

Meg Hillier (Chair): When will we have an idea what is happening next year, for instance, just to help us plan our workload?

29 Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: I would not like to say at the moment, but obviously some of those discussions are already taking place.

Meg Hillier (Chair): To go back to this year again, Visit London, and I do not know if you heard David Campbell was on the BBC last week, as I mentioned, but he did not seem to know as much as you about when these brochures were going to be appearing, which actually, funnily enough, I did not see in any of my newspapers, but anyway, I am sure that is just a blip. He was indicating that they would come out in the week of New Year’s Eve. Maybe that was a mistake on his part, or is it because there was some blip in the communication between Visit London and the GLA? How do Visit London fit into the planning team that you are part of?

Professor Lola Young, Head of the Culture Team, GLA: There is, as with all major events, a project team, and we meet regularly with Visit London in order to ensure that the plan is being implemented. But of course, as I am sure you will appreciate, the Chief Executive of Visit London may not know and be conversant with every single detail of how every single part of that plan is put into place. We have been working with Visit London on a number of different packages and have developed that working relationship.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Is it Visit London that is responsible primarily for the marketing, or is the GLA?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: Visit London.

Meg Hillier (Chair): So if we have got questions about the marketing, we should address those to David Campbell when he comes to us in January?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: Probably, yes. If he cannot answer, then please come back to us. But I would anticipate that that is what he would deal with.

On the publication, I did get it last Sunday with The Independent. I know that someone else mentioned to me that, I think in Leicester, they got it with the local paper in the course of the week, so it has definitely gone out.

Meg Hillier (Chair): I am not suggesting it did not; I am just thinking ‘damn, I did not get it in any of my papers’.

Brian Coleman (AM): I am not a regular reader of the Leicester Mercury these days. Chair, surely the whole point is, we have already decided, or the Committee has, that it takes 18 months to organise an event, and yet officers here have no idea what is going to happen on New Year’s Eve next year. Anyone who knows anything about the Lord Mayor of London’s Show knows that planning for the Lord Mayor’s Show starts three months’ before the show before, if you are with me, so 15 months’ before the event takes place. Here we are, a year before the next New Year’s Eve, and nobody has thought any further on.

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: Well, they have, but, I am afraid, at the moment that is discussions and advice to the Mayor about what might be done next year. Those discussions are not being left.

30 Meg Hillier (Chair): It is interesting, and we will probably address this to the Mayor next week, because I am never quite sure why there is secrecy around New Year, because we would all be quite interested in getting engaged, and Londoners certainly are very keen to see something happen.

One of the issues this year is perhaps about the marketing, which we will be raising with David Campbell. The message, from my perspective and what people have said to me, has not gone out strongly enough, i.e. that there are things happening on New Year’s Eve and that is perhaps part of the problem.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): I appreciate that it is not very pleasant, as it were, for you to be here feeling the brunt of our frustration, not to say anger, about this, but, as a committee and as an assembly as a whole, we have been raising ever since the original 2000 the need to get this organised, to plan ahead, to do something that is safe and appropriate. There is a real sense that our views, as speaking for the voice of London, I was going to say are held in contempt, but that is not – I am not saying you are – but in terms of…simply, the message is not getting through. We have done two reports now; you are before us, and I really do feel, where is the evidence that you do have a long- term plan?

The briefing note that I have says that the information on the website went live on 4 December. If you compare going to our website to going to the Edinburgh website, where if you go on the site it is very well presented, there is a ticketing system and the whole thing is much better organised and presented. Comparing Edinburgh, not with this year but with three years’ ago, we really ought to have been further forward. I am just trying to explain, so there is not a question here, where the frustration comes with what appears to be a little bit being spoon-fed to us very late in the day.

Can I ask specifically when the £800,000 from the LDA towards the fireworks was approved? The question I asked the Mayor did not actually mention it; it mentioned the £200,000 from the core GLA, not the £800,000 from the LDA. Why was that information not available two weeks’ ago? Does anybody know?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: I cannot tell you why the Mayor gives you the answers he does. What I can tell you is that the £800,000 from the LDA was agreed in the summer.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): I presumed, since you were conversant with his answer, that you would have drafted it and provided him with the information. He gave me the other numbers, and indeed he gave me the total confirmed budget for strategic activity around promoting London over Christmas and New Year, which is £3.7 million. That did not include the £800,000 that we now know about. Was it not £3.7 million?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: We would have to check, because we are not the LDA or Transport for London. All we know is we had £800,000 from the LDA, and the core GLA £200,000. I am not sure whether that £800,000 from the LDA is within that £1.8 million that is in that answer as from the LDA, but we can check that.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): That is for promotion, so I presume it is. The lesson I draw from that is that the Mayor, not you, and we will pursue this with him next week, two weeks’ ago could not give me a full account of the financing of New Year’s Eve. If he could

31 not two weeks’ ago, really that is why I sense, and the Commissioner, and we must be careful to be not to put words in his mouth.

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: Sorry, the answer says ...

Mike Tuffrey (AM): Sorry, I had not finished. We must be careful putting words in the Commissioner’s mouth, but I think we all got the very clear impression this morning and yesterday, for those who were at the Metropolitan Police Authority, that, certainly at the top of the Met, they were not clear what the plans were for New Year’s Eve.

All the evidence available to us is that this is not being forward-planned, and that is, in a sense, why we are so frustrated, why I am so frustrated today.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Jude (Woodward), you wanted to come back on finance.

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: I had only actually received the final written answer that was given recently, but the £1.8 million for the promotion of London to visitors over Christmas and the New Year period from the LDA does include the contributions towards the visual marketing of the event.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): Thank you.

Meg Hillier (Chair): It seems to me that one of the things we have uncovered here is that, whatever you are doing in the Culture Team, there is a lot of other people involved – Transport for London and the LDA. You also mention that you obviously liaise with the Mayor’s Office. Who is it specifically in the Mayor’s Office who deals with New Year’s Eve?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: There are a number of advisors who deal with it.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Okay, again more than one person. That perhaps explains some of the issues.

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: We all meet together.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Who is in the New Year’s Eve planning team for this year?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: Redmond O’Neill, Murziline Parchment, Emma St Giles.

Meg Hillier (Chair): And your team?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: Lola (Young), Transport for London and Visit London; that is the steering group.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Okay. So, if you like, the buck stops with the Mayor, ultimately. He makes the decisions about this, but where does the buck stop before him? Who is the day-to-day person controlling?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: Myself.

32 Meg Hillier (Chair): You? Okay, right. It has certainly been interesting questioning so far, and the other thing was that, if Visit London are on board, David Campbell also said when he said, I am not sure if it was on the radio, I missed some of the thing, that he was looking forward to a street party, possibly, for next year. He did indicate – it was actually on the radio – that there would be some public event. Is that his vision or is that the corporate vision?

Jude Woodward, Culture Team, GLA: That is what we are discussing and hope to be able to achieve, but all of these things depend upon being able to get a certain way ahead with the planning before they go into the public domain, because otherwise that becomes an issue about whether or not it is possible to do it; so, yes, options on that are being discussed.

Meg Hillier (Chair): They are already being discussed? You have been discussing this now, before next year, so you have hit a longer-range planning target in that sense? Okay, that is interesting.

We actually have Howard (Carter, Head of Law, GLA) here, who is going to explain to us about the Mayoral Approval Forms and our legal rights to receive them, because it is worth clarifying that before we finish.

Howard Carter, Head of Law, GLA: I am very happy to try and do that, Chair. The position is like so many of the things in the GLA Act; there just is not a straightforward answer to the question, yes or no, I wish there was.

In fact, Mayoral Approval Forms are of course an administrative creation of the Authority as a way of recording the Mayor’s decisions; they are not actually recognised in the legislation anyway. What that means in terms of a legal framework to apply for that is that we fall back, in terms of your powers to be able to require information. You do have quite broad powers to be able to require information from the Mayor. That is the starting point.

That does not mean to say that you are automatically entitled to the full content of a Mayoral Approval Form, though. But you are entitled to ask for information and documents that the Mayor has. There are then a number of grounds on which it would be possible for the Mayor to decline to provide you with that; the most applicable here are likely to be anything which constitutes advice to the Mayor, as opposed to anything which is purely information or factual, and secondly anything that was of a commercial confidential nature, which could be relevant, given that we are dealing with a commercial contract here.

The answer is not that you are entitled to the whole MAF, or you are not entitled to a whole MAF. The answer is that it depends on the content of it. You would certainly be entitled to ask specific questions and have answers to those; and you would be entitled to ask for that document. However, insofar as the document contained matters that you are not entitled to, then obviously the Mayor would be within his rights to withhold those parts of that document I am afraid I am at a slight disadvantage in that I have not got or seen the document today, so it would be very difficult to give you a detailed answer to my point in terms of the content.

33 Meg Hillier (Chair): We appreciate you coming down. It sound like, if we are actually asking for a detailed breakdown of where the money has been allocated, headline figures, we are entitled to that, subject to any rules of commercial confidentiality.

Howard Carter, Head of Law, GLA: Yes, I would agree with that. I think it may be worth saying that I have no idea what the position is in terms of how…I gather a request was made for this Mayoral Approval Form, and I have no idea myself where things have got to in terms of that, but generally the Mayor has been fairly receptive to requests from us in other areas, but I do not know what the position is with this, whether there an objection or not, I am afraid. I cannot help you with that, I do not know.

Noel Lynch (AM): Are there any time limits on that? We asked weeks’ ago for this. Is there any time limit to replies, saying yes or no or maybe?

Howard Carter, Head of Law, GLA: There is no time limit when you make an informal request in the way that you have. There are time limits when you actually use the statutory powers and then, I think off the top of my head, it is 14 days. You are entitled to give notice and then if that is not complied with within the 14-day period, then that is a criminal offence.

Meg Hillier (Chair): The Chair of the Assembly has herself asked for this MAF, so it has gone actually gone through…

Mike Tuffrey (AM): Do we need formally to do so?

Meg Hillier (Chair): That is what I was saying; I was thinking, today can we use our formal powers to request it?

Howard Carter, Head of Law, GLA: If you resolve to do that yes. You would resolve to request that that be put in place. It is actually the Chief Executive who has to issue the summons.

Meg Hillier (Chair): We have used our formal powers within the Committee before in another circumstance, so if the Committee is agreeable, it would make sense to get that, because it is information that ought to be available to us and, indeed, much of it to the public. There may be bits that are commercially confidential, which we would obviously respect as an issue, if that was the case. Do we need to use any formal form of words to do this?

Howard Carter, Head of Law, GLA: If you resolve to do that, we will make sure that the minutes reflect the accurate resolition.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Fine, okay. Thank you for coming along.

Mike Tuffrey (AM): In terms of the forward package, there is goodwill and support from Assembly Members to make a success of this, so the offer stands, and has stood from three years’ ago, to input constructively and be part of the process. I hope that, in the year ahead, as this package evolves, you can take our constructive input and use it, rather than on almost Christmas Eve hearing our anger that things are not going as we would have hoped them to do. Looking forward, let us try and repeat the offer to participate and help.

34

Professor Lola Young, Head of the Culture Team, GLA: Thank you, that is noted.

Meg Hillier (Chair): You have taken some of the words out of my mouth. There is a spirit of cooperation, and I apologise if the meeting has not been as calm and polite as our meetings normally are. We are all gunning for London, and want London to achieve, and as a committee support the Mayor’s proposals on having festivals and for London to be a festival city. We are on the record supporting that. We just find it puzzling that New Year’s Eve seems to have a slightly different approach, compared with many of the other things that are organised.

I am just checking if we need to put our formal powers into abeyance. If we were to get, because it is always much better to work through cooperation, the information cooperatively, we are happy to do that, I think. But we do not want to have to meet again tomorrow to use our formal powers, or over the next couple of days. I do not know if we are able to do that, Howard (Carter)?

Howard Carter, Head of Law, GLA: Chair, the thing to do would be to decide to issue a summons, but it would also be…obviously, if the information comes forward in the meantime, then before that machinery is put in place, you could obviously make it clear that you would then no longer require the summons.

Meg Hillier (Chair): We can do that? Okay.

Howard Carter, Head of Law, GLA: Also, it might be sensible for you to make sure that we have got the answers to all the formal bits that we need to do in order to fill out the summons.

Mike Lancaster, Senior Legal Advisor: If I suggest that perhaps you adjourn for 10 minutes, I can find the correct…

Howard Carter, Head of Law, GLA: We can do a form of words.

Meg Hillier (Chair): We do not need to keep our witnesses here if we adjourn?

Howard Carter, Head of Law, GLA: No.

Meg Hillier (Chair): Can I thank you both very much indeed for coming along, and I hope that we will come back perhaps before the summer or before this time next year with some exciting proposals for the next new year, stepping up a ratchet from this first stage. Thanks very much indeed. We adjourn for 10 minutes.

[ends]

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