CONFLICT of INTERESTS ?

The following article clearly shows how BIG Business treats Cyclists !

WITH CONTEMPT !

Copied from the Blog Post , in it's entirety , as the poster expresses it better than i could hope to do :

  "  http://cyclelondoncity.blogspot.com/


Canary Wharf Finance Director must declare conflicts of interest before he chairs November's Transport for London committee that decides whether to fund Cycle Super Highways or not
Posted: 11 Oct 2014 04:11 AM PDT                Photo

Peter Anderson, FD, Canary Wharf Group PLC
Chair of TfL finance committee that will decide
on the Cycle Super Highway investment
This post is going to be a bit explosive. Please have a serious think about what I'm going to say.

This chap pictured above is Peter Anderson. He is the Finance Director of Canary Wharf Group PLC.

He is also on the Board of Transport for London. He is also Chair of TfL's Finance & Policy Committee. Bear with me on this. It's quite astonishing.

On Friday, the Guardian carried a story in which Canary Wharf Group admitted "it was behind the anonymous briefing" which was published first on this blog and in which, in my view, Canary Wharf Group sought to present a whole range of falsehoods and misrepresentations as fact in order to discredit Transport for London's Cycle Super Highway plans.

Another article in the Guardian states: "Another business lobbyist funded by Canary Wharf has toured the party conferences claiming, wrongly, that the superhighways will delay traffic in London by 6%."

Now, I would suggest there is a conflict of interests going on. It is at the very least inappropriate and I would like someone who reads this blog to have a serious think about whether it could potentially be more serious than that.

There is a piece of legislation called the Greater London Authority Act 1999 which sets out the governance of Transport for London. And the Act is pretty clear about conflicts of interest:



Peter Anderson has sat in TfL board meetings in which Cycle Super Highways have been discussed. Have a look at the video below - a TfL board meeting in February. Minute 4.30 onwards, the board is talking about the first stage investment in Cycle Super Highways. From minute 5.30, here is Peter Anderson talking about those Cycle Super Highways and finding ways to obfuscate: "is the impact [of cycle super highways] greater than the benefits?" he asks and suggests they might "need a redesign".  Here, at board level, is Canary Wharf's finance director going into minute details about segregated bike lanes. It is, in my opinion, rather unusual for a board meeting to discuss such intricate details as the position of kerb lines in the way that Peter Anderson is doing in this video. That raises eyebrows already.

What raises eyebrows even more is that we now know Peter Anderson's employer, on whose board he also sits, has been briefing against TfL's own cycle super highway policy (although we don't know when precisely Canary Wharf started to do that). We also know that, to date, Peter Anderson has never declared any interest in cycling and its relationship to Canary Wharf. You can see Peter Anderson's declarations of interest online.

So, that's issue number one.

But issue number two is more astonishing.

Peter Anderson is also the Chair of the TfL Finance and Policy Committee. This is the committee at which funding for TfL projects gets decided on. And if you look at the agenda for that Committee, you can see that on November 25th, Peter Anderson will be chairing the meeting that decides whether or not to fund the Cycle Super Highways. Look at Page 4 on the Forward Schedule from the last meeting, and it's staring right at you: Cycle Super Highways Programme will be discussed in the November meeting of the TfL Finance and Policy Committee, chaired by Peter Anderson.

In other words, the Finance Director of Canary Wharf Group PLC, an organisation which has been actively briefing against the Cycle Super Highways, is going to chair the Committee next month that decides whether or not to finance those very same Cycle Super Highways. AND, that Finance Director has not yet declared his company's activities or any interest in the Cycle Super Highways.

If Peter Anderson is to chair this meeting my belief is that he needs to immediately:

a) Declare the extent to which lobbying by Canary Wharf Group PLC, and their appointed lobbyists, at political party conferences over the last 45 days have targeted TfL plans for 'Crossrail for bikes'

b) Declare the extent of lobbying by Canary Wharf Group PLC, and their appointed lobbyists, to its tenants over the last 60 days that have targeted TfL plans for 'Crossrail for bikes'. (It is interesting that Deloitte, a big 4 accounting firm has declared support for 'Crossrail for bikes'. KPMG, which is a tenant of Canary Wharf Group, however, has not).

c) Declare what contact and communication Canary Wharf Group PLC, and their appointed lobbyists, have put on London First to make statements about TfL's plans for 'Crossrail for bikes'.

d) Declare what contact and communication Canary Wharf Group PLC, and their appointed lobbyists, have put on the Federation of Small Businesses to make statements about TfL's plans for 'Crossrail for bikes'.

e) Declare what contact and communication there has been between Canary Wharf Group PLC, and their appointed lobbyists, with HM Treasury in the last 60 days that have made reference to or pertain to TfL's plans for 'Crossrail for bikes'.

f) To what extent George Iacobescu, the CEO of Canary Wharf Group PLC is using personal funding and contacts within the Conservative Party and specifically with George Osborne to impact the TfL's 'Crossrail for bikes'.

If this is not a clear, inappropriate and incorrect failure to declare conflicts conflict of interest, I don't know what is.