Lord Moynihan's broadside

Yesterday the BBC announced that it was possible that the cost of the Games could now exceed £12 billion - following this article from the Daily Telegraph, quoting Lord Moynihan - they also quoted that they believed that the budget was calculated "on the back of a cigarette packet"

Lord Moynihan, the chairman of the British Olympic Association, will launch an outspoken attack today on the financial management of the 2012 Games.

In an exclusive interview for Inside Sport, Moynihan, a Tory peer and a member of the London Olympic Board, criticises ministers for a lack of transparency over the project's budget. He also accuses them of failing to put in place the sort of financial controls necessary to ensure the £9.3 billion bill for the Games does not spiral out of control.

Alarmed: Colin Moynihan is concerned that the bill for the London Olympics in 2012 could spiral out of control "I have spent more time in my life in business than in politics and it is absolutely essential that rigorous financial controls should be top of the agenda," said Moynihan, who formally raised his concerns at a meeting of the Olympic board last week.

"We should be aiming to be on a par with a FTSE 100 company, but it is clear that there is a lot of room for improvement.

"We need a very clearly defined budget, a very clearly defined cash flow analysis, which is regularly updated, and a very clear focus on the contingency and how it is allocated to specific project lines in the budget.

"These things may well be going on inside government. But these are everybody's Games so it is very important that not only do we have the right controls in place but they should be transparent."

Moynihan's comments were yesterday dismissed by a senior government source, who described him as "difficult" and criticised him for trying to create divisions among the stakeholders.
The source added: "It's completely untrue to suggest that there's a lack of financial transparency. A climate of secrecy would not be tolerated."

The Daily Telegraph understands, however, that the Government are reviewing their financial systems with the budget secretariat, based at Canary Wharf, set to be replaced by a new set of civil servants working directly for the Government's Olympic Executive in Whitehall.

With the Public Accounts Committee due to grill Olympic officials next week, the timing of the changes shows there is some concern at present over the financial handling of the Games.
"The financial systems we had in place were not of a high calibre," another Whitehall insider said. "That's why we are seeking to translate it into the type of system which will guarantee better transparency."

Moynihan's primary fear is that the Olympic board's ability to oversee the project is being restricted by a lack of financial detail being provided by the Government and the Olympic Delivery Authority, the body responsible for building the venues for the Games.

He argues that without knowing how everything is being costed and paid for, it is making it much harder for board members to assess how the project is really progressing. "We just don't know what's included in the budget and what isn't," he added.

Moynihan's public intervention comes at a time when Olympic organisers are under pressure again over costs. Last week, this column reported how the Olympics minister, Tessa Jowell, admitted that the Government and the ODA have spent a staggering £60 million on consultants since last year.

A week earlier, members of the London Assembly were told that the cost for the main stadium had increased by 77 per cent since the successful 2005 bid to £496 million.

As a lifelong Conservative, who served as a sports minister for three years in Margaret Thatcher's government, Moynihan's attempt to put pressure on Labour ministers should come as no surprise. But Moynihan says he is not acting out of political interests, but to ensure money is not wasted.

His fear is that billions of pounds will be swallowed by regenerating a deprived part of east London and on delivering a sack of gold medals in 2012, leaving a lack of funding for the grand promise made by London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe in Singapore – to get Britain's youth playing sport again.

"As the host nation we must ensure that the Olympic ideal of raising the profile of sport and recreation touches every corner of the nation," he said. "We are a long way away from achieving that goal.

"That challenge is one of the biggest challenges we face over the next five years but it is time to start turning rhetoric into action."

Since taking over from Sir Craig Reedie two years ago, Moynihan, a cox who won a silver medal with the men's rowing eight in Moscow in 1980, has been working hard to define a new role for the BOA in a sporting environment dramatically altered by the 2012 project.

That has inevitably led to friction with other sports bodies, particularly UK Sport, the lottery funded agency responsible for the plan to turn Britain into the fourth strongest Olympic team in 2012.

The appointment of rugby union's 2003 World Cup-winning coach Sir Clive Woodward as the BOA's director of elite performance was seen as an attempt to muscle in on UK Sport's territory, as was their decision earlier this year to set up a commission to review the nation's anti-doping systems.

Moynihan claims Woodward is doing a "great job" and that relations between the two organisations are "good". But, in a sign that tensions remain, he reveals how a peace plan which would have seen UK Sport chairwoman Sue Campbell appointed to the BOA executive board at the same time as Moynihan took up a seat on the UK Sport board, had been rejected by Campbell. "I don't know why she rejected it," he said. "I felt it would cement a relationship."

Despite that, Moynihan remains convinced that the target of fourth place in the 2012 medals table is "unequivocally" realistic. But, in an effort to ensure medal hopefuls are not put under pressure too soon, he says the BOA are considering scrapping a medal target for next year's Games in Beijing.

He said: "To focus on a medal target is a mistake. Beijing must be seen as a stepping stone towards reaching fourth place in 2012."