2012 Olympics whinge

Couple 'unhappily' pay 2012 tax

2008-09-15T09:55:00.000-07:00

From the BBC:

An elderly couple who refused to pay an Olympics levy on their council tax bill have said they will "unhappily" pay the amount following a court ruling.

Tom and Rita Glenister, from Barnet, north London, had withheld £33.35 of their annual bill for two years.

They said all Britons and not just Londoners should pay towards the Games.

Hendon Magistrates' Court ordered the pensioners to pay £1,091.66, including £66 in arrears and the cost of bringing the case to the court.

Following the ruling former probation officer Mrs Glenister, 74, who represented the couple, said: "That was predictable. They do not like putting pensioners in jail.

"I will unhappily pay this because I do not want it to affect my son in future years."

Addressing the court she said they have paid council tax for 52 years but this is their "first time in a criminal court".

Mr Glenister, a retired civil servant, added: "I support my wife."

Mrs Glenister said: "At the end of the day I have faced Doodlebugs, the Third Reich, and terrorism, but when they say this could affect my son and his estate in future - I did not like that.

"If I had been single and had no hostages to fortune I might be prepared to go all the way to jail.

"We have been screwed and will continue to be screwed. We are an easy target and will continue to be an easy target."

The couple's son Tom, 46, said he was "proud" of his parents as they were "willing to stand up" for their principles.

A spokesman for Barnet Council said: "Part of the council tax is a Greater London Authority-levied precept to contribute towards the 2012 Olympics and this goes directly to the Greater London Authority.

"As the collecting authority, the council takes a strong approach to collecting any unpaid council tax and will use all available means to ensure that residents pay the full amount of council tax for which they are liable."

Job scam dupes foreign workers

2008-09-15T09:50:00.000-07:00

Not, this time, a governmental problem. From the Contract Journal:

Hundreds of Eastern European workers have been conned by a scheme which promised them jobs on the London 2012 Olympics site, according to a BBC investigation.

Some 550 Slovakians paid £550 to convicted East London fraudster, Nigel Lewis, who promised them work on the site of the Olympic Village, and accommodation on a cruise ship in Docklands. The jobs advertised were a mix of catering and tradesman positions.

But after the cash was deposited in Lewis's business account, he vanished, and the jobs failed to materialise.

Many of the Slovakians had taken out loans in the hope of securing jobs through Lewis. A Slovak recruitment agent, who dealt with the application, said that Lewis "was very enthusiasatic about the whole idea".

Lewis is reported to have been sentenced to 120 hours community service in 2003 for a similar job scam in Weymouth.

To them that hath...

2008-09-13T08:26:00.000-07:00

The Olympic gravy train rumbles on. From the Daily Mail:

The London Olympics were hit by further controversy yesterday after it emerged that Princess Anne is being paid £500 an hour to attend planning meetings.

As a non-executive director and head of the British Olympic Committee, the Queen's daughter - a former Olympian herself - is being paid £1,000 for each two-hour session she attends. Last year she earned a total of £4,000.

Olympic chief Paul Deighton found himself even better off thanks to a £104,000 bonus, according to annual accounts - even though he was the man responsible for commissioning the widely-derided Olympic logo.

The former Goldman Sachs banker, who is worth £110million, received a total of £557,440 as chief executive of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, known as Locog.
Under a loyalty scheme 51-year-old Mr Deighton is in line for a windfall payment of £300,000 on top of his salary if he remains in the top 2012 job until March next year and a similar payment if he lasts the course until 2012.

Other members of the board came off well with chairman Sebastian Coe pocketing an annual salary of £285,000. Finance director Neil Wood is the third highest earner on £260,000.

Olympic triple jump champion Jonathan Edwards was handed £87,000 for sports consultancy services on top of his £7,000 pay as a board member.

Details of their eye-watering salaries are in marked contrast to Locog's website advertisement for 70,000 public-spirited volunteers to help during the games in four years time to help with everything from spectator services to medical care.

'London 2012 is an opportunity to inspire everyone... [it] will depend on up to 70,000 volunteers to make sure the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games run smoothly and successfully,' it says.
A Buckingham Palace spokesman said last night: 'What the Princess Royal does with the payment is a private matter but you should be aware that the princess makes considerable donations to charity every year from a number of sources of income.'

Concern has already been raised at the highest level about the spiralling cost of the games which, it is feared, may reach more than £9.3billion, with taxpayers and Lottery funds carrying the burden.

According to its annual accounts, Locog employs 175 staff on a total wage bill of £11.1million * and has already signed sponsorship deals worth £317million including British Airways, BT, EDF Energy and Adidas.

The accounts also reveal that the committee spent a staggering £20million on the rights to use the Olympic rings in the UK from the British Olympic Association. They are considered a valuable 'intellectual property' which can be sold to help Locog reach its sponsorship target.
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* For those who would like assistance with the maths, this is the equivalent to an average of just under £63,500 per employee....

Athletes cosy up in the Credit Crunch...

2008-09-06T05:41:00.000-07:00

I am willing to bet that, despite the contents below, there will not be a reduction in junkets, parties and mutual backslapping by politicians and members of the ODC. This from the Guardian. In particular I draw your attention to the comment of IOC president Jacques Rogge who has made clear London must not fall short of the standards set by Beijing - so we will keep within the £9.73 billion budget, eh, Boris?:

London's 2012 Olympic village has a £250m funding shortfall that will have to be met from public money because the collapse of the housing market has made the project unviable for business, the Guardian has learned.

Plans for the private sector to build more than 3,000 apartments for competitors on the Olympic campus in a £1bn programme have been rocked by the credit crunch, which has made it harder to raise finance, and the slump in property values, which could damage the prospect of recouping money from sales after the games.

Government officials have now admitted they are set to launch a rescue package. "The Olympic Delivery Authority is doing all it can in difficult circumstances, but the property crunch and the credit crunch means we are looking at a funding gap of around £250m for the athletes' village at the moment," a senior government official said.

The emergence of the significant new cost for the 2012 games ends a honeymoon period for London's Olympic organisers after last month's record-breaking medal haul in Beijing. The money will have to be found from the overall £9.3bn of public funding set aside to stage the games, and the Treasury is understood to want most of the £250m to be found through cuts.
Architects have already been ordered to reduce the number of apartments in the village by almost 1,000, which means during the games five athletes will have to share each apartment rather than four. A number of high-rise blocks in the village have been also scrapped.

An announcement detailing the deal with Lend Lease, the property developer, will be made by the end of the year, the official added.

The shortfall is on a par with the £265m of public money invested in Team GB to win 19 gold medals in Beijing.

Olympic organisers insist any cash injection will not add to the overall £9.3bn cost of building the games venues and providing security. They said it will be absorbed either by the £2bn contingency included in the budget or by cuts elsewhere.

But the man charged with building the venues for the London 2012 Olympics on time and on budget remains upbeat after the transforming effect of Beijing on public enthusiasm for the games.

David Higgins, the chief executive of the Olympic Delivery Authority, an Australian who was involved in the build-up to the Sydney Olympics, told the Guardian: "We no longer have to fight the battle of why the games is a good thing and why we are hosting them. Everyone understands what a big deal the games are and how exciting it is to have a successful team."

Higgins declined to comment on the size of the bail-out, but said: "We have a fair idea of how we can fund the village. We are advising the government on various options and we are working with Lend Lease, the banks, the funders and the housing association to look at them."

He added: "We make no bones about it, it is a very difficult market for housing, for property and for east London. Building 3,000 homes in one go is not something that anyone would normally do, let alone in this market."

It represents the latest in a series of Olympic cost increases to be born by the taxpayer. When London won the bid for the event in Singapore in 2005, the overall budget estimate in the bid was £3.4bn, including regeneration costs, but since then the cost of venues has soared.

Higgins said the plans to build a partly permanent media facility which could become offices after the games are under review. The building has an estimated cost of £400m and one option being considered is to make it entirely temporary.

Fencing has already been relocated to the Excel Centre. Plans for equestrianism to be held at Greenwich Park and shooting at the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich are being reconsidered, and the temporary basketball arena could be abandoned and all of the basketball matches held at the Millennium Dome.

Higgins seems happiest with progress on the main stadium and the aquatics centre, the twin centrepieces of the Olympic park. Both have proved more costly than originally hoped. The aquatics centre is budgeted to cost £242m, compared to an original budget of £73m, and the main stadium is on course to cost £496m, compared to £387m at 2012 prices.

"A lot of our people came back and said the games can cope with a lot of temporary [facilities] and it doesn't have to be perfect," said Higgins. "People are quite comfortable going to rock concerts in Hyde Park and expect hoardings, crash fences, plastic barriers and cables everywhere. The same at Wimbledon and Chelsea Flower show. Everyone knows these are temporary events. This has more in common with that than building megastructures that will be there for a generation."

The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, wants to see change out of the £9.3bn, while IOC president Jacques Rogge has made clear London must not fall short of the standards set by Beijing.

Higgins said: "We are positioning our games as a different games, not competing with Beijing. Some of these events only go for three days. Whereas in Beijing you went to see the Bird's Nest or the Water Cube, people will come and be encouraged to experience the games on screens, there will be lots of vegetation and lots of food. It will be like a typical English park."

So much for the legacy Games!!

2008-09-06T05:30:00.000-07:00

So the 2012 Olympic games is going to have a lasting legacy that will be passed on to future generations! This from the Contract Journal this week:

The London Development Agency is considering demolishing the 2012 Olympic stadium once the Games are complete, and building a football stadium in its place.

London Mayor Boris Johnson has become increasingly concerned that no "anchor tenant" has come forward to occupy the venue, according to the Evening Standard.

A spokesman for Johnson said: "Expensive facilities should not be built unless they have a viable future.

"The LDA has been looking at a range of options, but the Mayor... is not aware of any plans to demolish it [the stadium]."

Johnson's advisers are believed to favour building a new football stadium on the site of the stadium after the Olympic Games.

West Ham United would be the obvious football team to occupy the stadium, though their original talks with the 2012 organisers about moving to the venue broke down two years ago. Tottenham Hotspur are also in need of a bigger capacity stadium.

The LDA director charged with finding a legacy for the stadium is Tom Russell, who was a key figure in moving Manchester City into the City of Manchester Stadium after the 2002 Commonwealth Games.

The same publication also pointed out that three other venues will exist only for the two weeks of the Games:

Three Olympic venues could be pulled from London 2012, as concerns mount over the costs of the construction programme.

The Evening Standard reports that accountants KPMG have been appointed by the London Olympics' organisers to review the necessity of building three of the venues. These are: the equestrian venue at Greenwich Park; the shooting venue in Woolwich; and the basketball venue in the main Olympic park.

Tessa Jowell, minister for London 2012, told the Standard: “We have commissioned KPMG to do a report on the equestrian, shooting and basketball venues, looking at whether the Olympic experience and the legacy they will provide represents value for money.

“When you take the costs for these venues, it seems like a lot of money to a lot of people. It is a sort of testing-to-destruction to see whether that spending can be justified.”

Under Budget???

2008-08-23T04:42:00.000-07:00

Boris Johnston, London's new mayor, has announced that he wants to bring the 2012 Olympics on line under budget - or at least, fudge the costs in some way so that it appears that way (see quotes from Jack Lemley!)
From the BBC:

Mayor of London Boris Johnson has told the BBC he is "absolutely determined" the 2012 Olympics will cost less than the current £9.3bn budget.

Mr Johnson, who is in China on an official visit to the Beijing Games, said British and London taxpayers would "not pay a penny more".

His team was working on ways of economising without jeopardising the "legacy value" of the event, he added.

But Olympic bosses said London still had to ensure the welfare of athletes.

Asked whether 2012 would be the "austerity games", Mr Johnson conceded that the Chinese had put on "absolutely fantastic games" and that they had "set the bar high".

"I think with British ingenuity, wit and... resourcefulness we are going to produce a games - an opening ceremony, a closing ceremony and all the stuff in between - that is going to be in our own sweet way just as fantastic," he told BBC2's Newsnight.

I am absolutely determined to make sure that we come in under the £9.3bn

The original budget for the London Olympics in 2005 was £3.4bn, but was increased to £9.3bn last year. More than £2bn comes from Lottery funding, more than £1bn from London council tax payers and £6bn from Whitehall.

Mr Johnson said his team was currently economising and "finding ways of moving things around" and that the budget figure had "a couple of billion built in as contingency".

"I am absolutely determined to make sure that we come in under the £9.3bn. I have no reason to think that we will have any difficulty in doing that," he said.

He added: "I will ensure that London taxpayers and indeed British taxpayers do not pay a penny more."

Mr Johnson confirmed that security in 2012 would be a "big spend", but he dismissed a price tag of £1bn, saying he had seen a figure of £600m.

'Wonderful Games'

Mr Johnson also said the loss of three senior officials from his administration in three months would not affect the delivery of the Olympics.

"We are going to have a wonderful games and I can assure you all my team is working very hard to make sure that we protect value for London taxpayers and that people coming to London will enjoy themselves," he said.

Mark Wallace, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said he welcomed the fact that organisers were being strict with budgets.

"We do need to be firm on this. We can't allow the Olympic Delivery Authority, or whoever else involved with the Games, simply to try and hold taxpayers to ransom."

But Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, said London still had to deliver as well as China with regard to the quality of the Olympic village, venues and transport.

"The Games are for the athletes, the Games are not for London, the Games are not for Great Britain," he added.

But Mr Johnson told BBC News athletes would not be "short-changed" at London 2012.

"They are going to have a fantastic Olympic village in which to spend their time during the Games," he said.

"In the long term, those 3,000 units we are building in east London are going to be a vital part of the legacy we want to see out of the Olympic Games. That's why it would be completely senseless to economise."

He added that the world had been gripped by "Olympo fever" and he is certain London 2012 will be "fantabulous".

Mr Johnson has been defending his decision not to discuss human rights in talks with Chinese authorities during his trip.

He said it would have been "deeply counterproductive" to "showboat" and grab UK headlines at a time when China was opening up to the world.

Instead, the Beijing Games should be used to encourage better understanding between China and the rest of the world, he added.

Memories of Greece re-appear

2008-08-12T04:24:00.000-07:00

Remember the empty seats at the Greek Olympics? Looks like China is feeling the same effect. Just how can the cost be justified in cases like this? This from the BBC's website today:

Chinese officials have admitted that they are concerned about the lack of spectators at some Olympic events.

They have hired volunteers, dressed in yellow shirts, to fill up empty venues and improve the atmosphere inside.

But Wang Wei, a senior official with the Beijing organising committee (Bocog), said other Olympics had experienced similar problems.

The comments came after spectators and journalists noticed that certain venues were far from full, even though all events are sold out.

Weather?

Speaking at a daily press briefing, Mr Wang said: "We are also concerned about this not full stadium [issue]."

He said a number of factors had contributed to this, including the hot and humid weather in Beijing, as well as the rain.

Mr Wang said some spectators were also only turning up for specific events, even though they had tickets for a whole session.

"For competitions like beach volleyball and basketball, [spectators] have one ticket for the whole afternoon, morning, evening," he explained.

"They may choose to go to one of them, but not all them."

Mr Wang, executive vice-president of Bocog, said local authorities were hiring volunteers to fill empty seats.

In some cases, volunteers have been drafted to fill the gaps

"If they find that there are not enough people, or if they find that there are too many empty seats, they organise some cheerleaders," he said.

These cheer for both sides to "create a good atmosphere", he added.

Although some events are full - such as Sunday's clash between the men's basketball teams from China and the United States - others have been less well attended.

Corporate sponsors

These include sessions of judo, badminton and water polo.

"There were heaps of empties. It's sickening," said one spectator who went to the judo expecting to see a full house.

There were even a number of empty seats at the opening ceremony on Friday.

One reason for less-than-full venues could be that seats allocated to corporate sponsors are not being used.

Many of these tickets are handed out the night before events take place, sometimes too late for those who get them to attend, according to someone with access to these tickets.

Legacy? No way!

2008-08-08T02:08:00.000-07:00

Stephen Norris writing in Property Week:

Olympic legacy is a recipe for disaster

The start of the 2008 Beijing Olympics is only a fortnight away. After the controversy over Tibet and the infamous global torch-carrying fiasco, the games themselves run the risk of being an anti-climax, but we’ll cheer Team GB as they try to improve on our Athens medal tally. Best of luck to them but, after Beijing, we know we’re next up.

The curtain rises in London on 27 July 2012 and there’s no point in asking whether the world would mind if we put it off by a year. That’s it – the ultimate drop dead date – and as of now, with 1,460 days to go – it’s edging ever closer.

Olympic preparations are a real stretch for any city. Beijing is predictably ready. It even claims to have cleaned up the air, although it will be interesting to go back in a year’s time and see how permanent that is. But four years ago, the concrete around some of the Athens facilities was hardly dry for the opening fireworks and there was a real risk of disaster.

So are we set to make global fools of ourselves and replicate the Millennium Dome, or can we show the Chinese that a healthy free market can do the job even better than legions of the People’s Liberation Army?

Coherent vision

The official version is that we’re on track.

Work on the Olympic stadium, which is the centrepiece of the Olympic Park in the Lea Valley, started three months early.

Carillion and Igloo will take charge of the vast press centre, which will house 20,000 journalists – almost one per athlete.

Balfour Beatty is building the Zaha Hadid-designed aquatic centre. Four of the five main projects are now well up and running.

Lend Lease has had problems financing the Olympic Village, which will yield 3,500 homes after the games but, if necessary, the government will underwrite the cost because time is now critical.

I will stick my neck out and say that everything I hear and see tells me we will be ready in time for the games.

That does, however, leave two big questions. One is out-turn cost. The first pathetically inadequate estimate from the government was £3bn. We are now officially up to £9bn, but expect the final bill to be closer to £11bn.

The second issue is legacy. You don’t spend all those billions to put on a month-long sporting event, however good the TV revenue is. London 2012 has always been about turning a desolate swathe of east London into a vibrant, healthy and attractive place to live, work and enjoy life.
That is where I get unhappy. I don’t yet see any coherent vision for life after the games. The Olympic Village might suit the athletes, but just producing one- and two-bedroom homes out of it is a recipe for social disaster.

Where are the four- and five-bedroom family homes with gardens and garages? Where are the shops, health centres, primary school and pubs that any community desperately needs? Why was West Ham not the obvious stadium tenant? If not them, who will save it from weeds and decay?

The truth is that the real thinking about the Olympics has yet to start. We’ll deliver the games all right. But whether London gains or loses post-2012 is still an open question.

Postscript :
Steven Norris is an adviser to London mayor Boris Johnson on transport and development

Forget 2012 - let's spend in 2008!

2008-08-07T07:23:00.001-07:00

£7 million to send civil servants to Beijing Olympics... From today's Daily Mail:

The Government is under fire today over the number of public servants travelling to the Beijing Olympics - at a reported total cost of £7 million - amid accusations that the event is being treated as a junket.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is flying out to attend the closing ceremony, will be accompanied by 20 aides at a cost of £114,000, it is reported.

Many bodies involved in organising the 2012 London games are sending representatives, with the capital's Tory mayor Boris Johnson taking 13 staff at a reported cost of £167,000, while the London Development Agency has spent £3 million to hire out a private members' club in Beijing for the duration of the Games.

Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell, Culture Secretary Andy Burnham, Sport Minister Gerry Sutcliffe and 10 officials from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport will attend the Games at a £75,000 cost.

Another 11 Whitehall ministers and officials will be going to China, the newspaper said.
In total, 639 people at a cost of £6,846,700 will attend - most of them BBC staff involved in coverage of the games.

Revealing the figures today, the Daily Telegraph reported that the BBC was spending £3 million and taking 437 staff to China.

Liberal Democrat culture spokesman Don Foster said: 'While appreciating the importance of the UK being represented in Beijing, questions have to be asked if this many people are necessary.
'I'm staggered by the amount of money some departments are spending on sending their staff.

'It almost looks as if some public officials have been dreaming up excuses to go on a junket.

'The Olympics are an incredible spectacle, but taxpayers' money shouldn't be used merely to enable officials to be there unless they can justify the benefit to the British people of their going.'
A Downing Street spokesman said the Prime Minister's staff had 'worked hard to ensure that the appropriate number of staff accompany him' on the visit.

And a quickie from the Daily Telegraph:

Britain's Olympic squad will be outnumbered two to one in Beijing by politicians, civil servants and BBC staff whose trips to China will cost the public almost £7 million, the Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Tight controls?

2008-07-26T03:46:00.000-07:00

From the BBC 24 July (why do I feel that I should add "Oh, yeah?" to the comment that the £9.3 billion must not be exceeded? And, thanks government for the encouragement - they want us to be 4th in the overall medals table and 2nd in the paralympics. Why not first, eh?) Hey, did anyone see the cost of the tickets for the opening ceremony in Beijing? £1,200 a seat! Reassuring that the Games are held for the people - how many in China earn that much in a year? :

There must be "tight control over costs" in the run-up to the 2012 London Olympics, MPs have said.

An "eagle eye" is needed to ensure the £1bn contingency fund is not exceeded, the public accounts committee added.

But "arrangements to manage the whole programme and the associated risks are not yet in place", chairman Edward Leigh warned.

The government said its commitment to not exceeding the £9.3bn public funding budget for the Games was "unequivocal".

In its report the committee noted that the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), in charge of building and infrastructure for the Games, had not yet reached agreement with Lend Lease, its preferred developer for the Olympic Village.

Mr Leigh, Conservative MP for Gainsborough, said: "As legacy and security requirements are firmed up and as lessons from Beijing are taken on board, the delivery bodies must keep tight control over costs and time.

"There will be pressure to change venues and infrastructure, the delivery bodies must be quite clear about the costs of any such changes and their consequences for the programme.

"The rocky state of the financial and property markets has not helped efforts, so far unsuccessful, to reach a deal with the private sector to build the Olympic Village, expected to cost more than £1bn."

He added: "In the light of growing uncertainties, the Department [for Culture, Media and Sport] should keep an eagle eye on potential demands on the £1bn of contingency funds which have not yet been earmarked."

The government has set the Great Britain team the target of coming fourth in the 2012 medals table and second in the Paralympics.

But the government is not even "out of the starting blocks" in its drive to raise £100m to boost elite sport, Mr Leigh said.

The report suggested: "There is a risk that, unless the activities of a wide range of public, private and voluntary bodies are properly co-ordinated, the focus on winning medals could distract the department's attention from encouraging ordinary people to participate.

"There is no clear evidence that elite sporting achievement influences people to take up sport in the long term, and Olympic medallists in certain sports such as rowing and equestrianism do not represent the make-up of the wider population, with a disproportionate number coming from privileged backgrounds."

Efforts to raise the £100m from the private sector are expected to begin after next month's Beijing Olympics but the DCMS has not been able to say how it expects to attract private sector donors or provide any guarantees that the money would be raised, the committee noted.

A DCMS spokesman said: "Since the committee's last report, construction of the Olympic Stadium and the Aquatics Centre has begun ahead of schedule, construction of the Olympic Village has begun on time and three-quarters of the 2.5 square kilometre Olympic Park site has now been cleared.

"We told the committee that the £9.3bn budget for the Olympics cannot and will not be exceeded and that commitment is unequivocal.

"We have made progress in developing a range of proposals to raise the £100m private sector funding for elite sport with Fast Track as our official fund-raising partner.

"We are in discussions with a number of interested parties about a national sponsorship scheme to help our athletes prepare for London 2012."

Liberal Democrat sports spokesman Don Foster said: "Looking at the numerous holes in the Olympic project, one has to ask what on earth these various scrutiny bodies have been doing.

"Legacy plans must be finalised to ensure that the Games are a success. The government's inability to attract private investors for elite sport is also extremely disappointing."

The Beeb also quotes:
"There is no clear evidence that elite sporting achievement influences people to take up sport in the long term", a comment made by the Public accounts committee.

The Public Servant Daily was a bit more forthright in its observations. Again it is interesting that the committee brought in to keep the costs down cost us only £87million in the last year - wonder if they saved more than that...:

Preparations for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games in London are not going as well as they could, in terms of improving the chances of success for Britain’s competitors and in making sure the project is delivered on time and to budget, according to the Committee of Public Accounts (PAC).

MPs felt that the medal table goals of fourth and second respectively are "demanding" and UK Sport should use the country’s performance in the Beijing Olympics as a benchmark to how much work needs to be done to meet these targets.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport itself is not yet off the starting blocks in its drive to raise the £100m it needs from the private sector, the committee said, and if the money that eventually comes in is too little or too late this could harm the teams’ chances of medals. There has to be a ‘Plan B’ for protecting funds for the sports most likely to win medals in 2012.

As for being ready to host the games, the committee welcomed the news that construction had begun and the programme was broadly on track but it was concerned that there were still no firm arrangements on managing the whole programme and the risks associated with it.

PAC chairman Edward Leigh said: "As legacy and security requirements are firmed up and as lessons from Beijing are taken on board, the delivery bodies must keep tight control over costs and time. There will be pressure to change venues and infrastructure; the delivery bodies must be quite clear about the costs of any such changes and their consequences for the programme."

He added: "The rocky state of the financial and property markets has not helped efforts, so far unsuccessful, to reach a deal with the private sector to build the Olympic Village, expected to cost more than £1bn. The [government] has unequivocally assured the committee that the present £9.3bn public funding budget for the games will not be exceeded. In the light of growing uncertainties, the [government] should keep an eagle eye on potential demands on the £1bn of contingency funds which have not yet been earmarked."

A consortium called in to look at keeping costs down when building arenas and the 2012 Olympic village cost the taxpayer £87m in the last financial year, according to a government report.

Made up of Laing O’Rourke, Mace, the British management company, and the programme manager CH2M Hill, the consortium was paid 15 per cent of the £563m the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) spent in the year. At the same time, staff costs at the ODA went up by 36 per cent from £18.7m to £29.2m. ODA chairman John Armitt defended the spending.

"This is a project without precedent," he said. "The remuneration of the senior management team reflects the scale of this challenge and is consistent with industry market levels. It also reflects the good progress that has been made in preparing the Olympic Park site in the last year."

Taxpayer to foot bill for cops’ Olympics trip

2008-07-17T07:15:00.000-07:00

From the Essex Echo today:
Two senior police officers will travel to the Beijing Olympics at taxpayers’ expense.

Essex Police Authority agreed to send the force’s Assistant Chief Constable Peter Lowton and Supt Simon Williams to China for two to three weeks at a cost of thousands.

The cash for the trip was agreed by the authority’s finance and audit committee.

In a report of the meeting the authority said it was sending the two officers ahead of the London 2012 Olympics so they can “learn a great deal about staging a major event”.

The cheapest flights to Beijing found by the Echo during the Olympic game season, from August 8 to August 24, cost more than £530 for a return, and that does not include money for accommodation.

Bizarrely, despite the fact the trip was confirmed in the minutes of the meeting and by the police authority, the force would not confirm the officers’ trip.

Donna Veasey, of Essex Police said: “It is still to be confirmed anyone from Essex Police will be attending the Beijing Olympic games.”

But Robert Chambers, chairman of Essex Police Authority, confirmed and defended the trip. He said: “I would be the first to say if I thought it was a waste of money. I don’t like wasting taxpayers’ money.

“Mr Lowton is going out there to assess the Olympics for Essex Police’s point of view with regard to the heavy involvement we will have in both 2012 and before then, with the various training exercises.

“We haven’t had the Olympics in this country for 64 years, so I think we are a little bit out of date with how things work.

“The police are very much vital to the running of any international competition and I think it is right and proper someone should assess the problems and issues that could arise.

“You get organisations that send half a dozen people out to things like this, but we are only sending two people I think, who can have a genuine impact.

“This could save us money in the long run – if we can put measures in place now that could save us in the future.”

Essex Police already has a London 2012 planning team and a part-time member of staff who works with the Olympic Security Directorate.

Mayors clash over Olympic costs

2008-07-17T07:09:00.000-07:00

BBC website today:
London Mayor Boris Johnson has clashed with his predecessor Ken Livingstone over the funding of the 2012 Olympics.

Mr Johnson told BBC Radio 4 a deal signed by Mr Livingstone on cost over-runs was "far from clear" and he doubted its existence.

Mr Livingstone said the comments were "bizarre" as the memorandum of understanding had been published.

He said it guaranteed Londoners would not pay if the Games went over budget. Mr Johnson has made a similar pledge.

In his Today interview, Mr Johnson acknowledged there were "concerns" about over-runs on "big ticket items" but said that did not mean the project as a whole would go still further over budget.

Mr Livingstone said last year he had signed a memorandum of understanding with the government to cover what would happen if there were any cost over-runs.

Asked if he would publish the document, Mr Johnson said: "I rather doubt that it exists.
"There is a doubt the agreement that was struck between the former mayor and the Labour prime minister about the exact extent of London's obligations."

Pressed on the terms of the agreement, Mr Johnson said: "There is a dispute at the moment between the GLA and the mayoralty and the government about who is up for the over-runs in so far as they may or may not occur.

"The details of this deal are from clear."

He added: "What I want to do is to make sure there are no over-runs."

And he promised that "these are going to be the most wonderful Olympics in history, since 753BC or whenever it was that they kicked off".

Mr Livingstone and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport both contacted the Today programme after the interview with Mr Johnson had been broadcast to confirm the existence of the memorandum - and the fact that it had already been published.

Mr Livingstone said: "I find this bizarre. It was published in the House of Commons Library, Boris could have seen it as an MP, I gave a copy to every member of the London Assembly."
He said it was a "very good deal because it specifies in writing, with the government's signature and mine, there will be no increase in the council tax and no increase in fares if there are any further cost over-runs".

He said the memorandum, which was on the DCMS website, mostly dealt with "who will get most out of the profits when the land is sold after the Olympic Games".

In a report published on Wednesday, David Ross, the Olympic watchdog appointed by Mr Johnson, warned the credit crunch and a collapse in property prices could mean "significant" extra public money would be needed.

Mr Livingstone said Mr Ross had done a "very reasonable job" in identifying areas which could go wrong.

"Clearly if the property market collapsed for a decade and we had something like the 1930s, these figures all fall apart.

"But I think most people assume we are going to have a couple of bad years and then both land and property prices are going to be growing again quite strongly by the time of the Olympic Games. We will get our money back."

Asked why the rest of the country should pay for something that mainly benefited London, Mr Livingstone said it "rebalances the national finances" for the "30 years" when the capital had no infrastructure investment.

In his report, David Ross revealed that "new economic and market conditions had put additional pressures on the venues' budget which had risen by £106m".

He says the credit crunch, falling house prices, increased oil and raw material costs and the threat of terrorism were factors which will add "significant pressure" to the cost of the Olympics.
Mr Ross also pointed to difficulties in securing finance for the Olympic Village and said work was ongoing with the developer, Lend Lease, and its banks to secure private equity and debt funding.
He warned: "In all scenarios some significant additional public sector funding is likely to be required to deliver the project."

However, he said savings made elsewhere meant there "has only been a very small increase in the overall anticipated final cost of the total programme of £16m".

Stadium will now cost £525 million - and no legacy?

2008-06-18T03:33:00.000-07:00

From the BBC's website today:

The estimated cost of the main stadium for the 2012 Games has hit £525m, the mayor's Olympics watchdog has revealed.

A review of London's preparations for the Games found the figure for the 80,000-seat stadium in Stratford, east London, had jumped £29m since November. But the report by business tycoon David Ross noted the increased costs had been offset by savings elsewhere, leaving an increase in projected costs of £16m.

The stadium was originally priced at £280m in London's 2005 bid document.

New London Mayor Boris Johnson commissioned the three-week review.

Cost pressures
"It is clear also that on costs and funding we need to have greater transparency and openness," said Mr Johnson.

"The ODA's final cost estimates already anticipate that at least a billion pounds of contingency provided within the Budget will be spent."

He added: "I want to make it clear that Londoners will not pay a penny more in council tax to pay for the games no matter what the circumstances."

Mr Ross was chosen by the mayor to keep an eye on the Olympic purse strings. He sits on the London Olympic organising committee board as Mr Johnson's nominee.

He identified questions over the security of the 2012 Games, its legacy and the Olympic Village as key areas which need to be "focused on".

The report points to tighter controls on bank lending, falling house prices, increased oil and raw material costs and the threat of terrorism as factors which will add "significant pressure" to the cost of the Olympics.

Mr Ross noted difficulties in securing finance for the Olympic Village and said work was ongoing with the developer, Lend Lease, and its banks to secure private equity and debt funding.

He warned: "In all scenarios some significant additional public sector funding is likely to be required to deliver the project."

However, he said savings made elsewhere meant there "has only been a very small increase in the overall anticipated final cost of the total programme of £16m."

He identified that security plans were "significantly behind the rest of the planning".

"It is absolutely vital that significant progress is made quickly on security planning so that necessary facilities are identified early enough to be provided cost effectively," he said.

And while he said there would be transport and regeneration benefits from London hosting the games, he issued a word of caution with regards to a lasting legacy.

"I am disappointed that we find ourselves at an advanced stage of the procurement process without clear and agreed plans for legacy for a number of important venues."

Ready for the mascot?

2008-06-16T05:37:00.000-07:00

From the BBC's website:

Past macots (Recognise these chaps?):
SUMMER GAMES MASCOTS
Munich 1972: Waldi the dachshund
Montreal 1976: Amik the beaver
Moscow 1980: Misha the bear
Los Angeles 1984: Sam the eagle
Seoul 1988: Hodori the tiger
Barcelona 1992: Cobi the Catalan sheepdog
Atlanta 1996: Izzy
Sydney 2000: Syd the platypus, Ollie the kookaburra, Millie the echidna
Athens 2004: Athena and Phevos, the Greek gods
Beijing 2008: Beibei the fish, Jingjing the panda, Huanhuan the Olympic flame, Yingying the antelope and Nini the swallow

How not to have an Olympic mascot nightmare

By Finlo Rohrer BBC News Magazine
The London 2012 Olympics organisers will be picking a mascot in the next year, possibly through a public competition. But how can you avoid an Olympic mascot disaster?

The launch of the London 2012 logo a year ago was met by a blizzard of negative public reaction.

At some point in the next 12 months the London organisers will choose a mascot, and throwing the process open to entries from the general public is one option being considered. Whatever method is chosen, avoiding a repeat of the logo storm of negativity will be as important as anything.

Since the first official mascot in 1972, there have been examples of successful and unsuccessful choices. Think of the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona and many will remember Cobi, the stylised, Picasso-influenced Catalan sheepdog. But try and cast your mind back to the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Remember the mascots? They were Syd, Ollie and Millie, now long retreated into obscurity.

Looking back over 36 years of mascots, there are definitely lessons that can be learned.

BRACE YOURSELF FOR FLAK

Whether the designer of the London 2012 mascot is a professional or a member of the public, they should be prepared for barbed salvoes from the minute their design is launched.

Rarely has there been more vitriol for a mascot than that aimed at Izzy, designed for the 1996 Atlanta games.

The Simpsons creator Matt Groening described it as "a bad marriage of the Pillsbury doughboy and the ugliest California Raisin" and in the US press it was derided as anything from a "blue slug" to a "sperm in sneakers".

Twelve years on Atlanta designer John Ryan - who received only a "handsome tie and a bottle of wine" for his work - still looks back with sadness at the reception to his design for Izzy.

"It was very effective for kids, we got a lot of interesting flak from adults. Journalists were ripping the mascot and making it stand for everything that was wrong with the city, even potholes. It was a bad reaction and a lot of bad blood. To this day it will still show up in the press as 'the much-reviled 1996 mascot'."

What should have been the crowning moment of Ryan's career has always meant mixed feelings.
"As a professional I wish it was something I had on the top of my CV... but it's the red-headed stepchild. I hope that I can prove that I have something else that I will be known for before I die.

"It was amazing and yet as a designer you look back at the process and say that couldn't have gone any worse."

STAND YOUR GROUND

Once you've dealt with the flak, it's important to remember that, as with the 2012 logo launch, the worst vituperation will fade.

This was certainly the case with 1992's Cobi. The launch was greeted with derision from some quarters, with the Catalan president of the International Olympic Committee Juan Antonio Samaranch understood to have been displeased. Even the designer, Javier Mariscal, was reported to have said: "It is hard to fall in love at first sight with a dog that looks as if he has been run over by a heavy goods vehicle."

But after its initial mixed reaction, Cobi showed the value of riding out the storm. From the mascot launch to the start of the games is a matter of years, giving the public and officials a chance to get used the designs and learn to love them. In the end, Cobi won people over.

WHO IS THE MASCOT FOR?

An Olympic mascot has to fulfil a complicated brief. The Olympics is an event attended and watched on television, in the main, by adults. But the mascot is also a commercial device - there's no point putting it on stuffed toys, fridge magnets, rubbers, pyjamas and packed-lunch boxes if it doesn't appeal to kids. And as well as appealing aesthetically to these two divergent constituencies, it must also convey a message.

"You have got to try and put the use of a mascot in a context. It is a supportive element of communicating something about your brand," says Rune Gustafson, chief executive of branding consultants Interbrand.

"The mascot will not only have a recognition factor but will also have a commercial opportunity behind it."

It's tricky to have a mascot that has gravitas and looks good on pencil sharpeners.

Ryan feels he followed the design imperatives set by Atlanta's committee.

"The directives were very defined to some high ideals. They seemed to be very child-oriented - they wanted to inspire children all over the world.

"Kids were loving it. Whenever the costume version appeared in groups kids were getting excited. It was very heart warming. But as a mascot designer you want to be loved by all."

CONSIDER A CHARACTERISTIC ANIMAL

Most Olympics mascot designers have decided not to stray too far from the formula of picking the cutest possible animal associated with the games venue. Even the stylised Cobi was supposed to be a Catalan sheepdog. Moscow's Misha was a cuddly Russian bear at the height of the Cold War. Los Angeles followed that with an affable eagle.

Ryan considered the route of simply opting for something characteristically Georgian - like a native animal - as "fairly trite".

"We went through the barrage - let's see, a peanut is from Georgia, a peach, a possum, you started to go through all the Ps. My initial response was let's not go for an animal.

"You can either get pigeon-holed into this or do something a bit more playful and create a little something that everyone looked at and thought I don't know what that is."

In the end the blue cartoonish blob, with a gaping mouth, different coloured eyelid, lightning flash eyebrows and red training shoes, could certainly not have been accused of being characteristically Georgian and justified its working title of Whatizit.

Another departure from the animals theme, Athens's Athena and Phevos, was criticised by a Greek religious group as being disrespectful.

If the London mascot designers decide not to go down the abstract route they will have plenty of animals to choose from, says Renata Kowalik, conservation programmes manager at the London Wildlife Trust.

The Olympics site in east London has kingfishers and plenty of eels. In the wider area there are water voles and otters. And if you want a symbol of 21st Century Britain, why not go for the black redstart, a robin-like bird that has adapted to the furious urbanisation of the last two centuries.

AVOID DESIGN BY COMMITTEE

There is an old saying that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Certainly it's hard to disagree with the notion that matters of design proceed better when led by one mind.

When it comes to the Olympics this is not easy. Committees proliferate.

"When you look back at mascots you very seldom see the designer mentioned," says Ryan. "They become designed by committee. It gets co-opted by dozens of people who all think they are designers."

What Ryan originally came up with was tweaked, shifted and recast by a host of competing officials. The greatest design success of the history of mascots, he believes, is Mariscal's Cobi, aided largely by the designer being allowed full control.

ACCEPT FAILURE GRACEFULLY

There is no shame in admitting that mascot didn't work. In the build-up to the 1996 games, the Atlanta organisers sidelined Izzy, apparently suffering embarrassment at any materialisation of the blue entity.

In 2000, Syd the platypus, Ollie the kookaburra and Millie the echidna were not particularly well received. And the vaguely sinister-looking trio found themselves more marginalised as the games went on. There was competition from Fatso the wombat, a very unofficial mascot, who by the end of the games was the more recognisable figure for many.

London should prepare for the same battle if it doesn't get its mascot design right.

Boris swings into action

2008-06-12T07:39:00.000-07:00

From the Guardian:

Mayor Boris Johnson today takes the reins of the Olympic Board and intends to ram home his message of tight financial management of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Chairing the meeting, Johnson will come face to face with those he accused in the week of "failing" to have a coherent 'legacy' plan. He called previous commitments "unrealistic."

Beijing cuts
Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell, who headed former mayor Ken Livingstone's election campaign, British Olympic Association Chairman Colin Moynihan and London 2012 Organising Committee Chair Sebastian Coe will hear of cuts to planned Beijing operations.

The number of City Hall delegates flying out to Beijing for the Olympic Games will be reduced as will spending on accommodation, Johnson also plans to fly economy.

He estimates saving around £1.2 million from Livingstone's original plans for London House, a venue in Beijing intended to promote London during the Games and scrapping plans to fly out eighteen Gordon Ramsay chefs, who would have provided catering for visitors and guests.

Earlier in the year he scrapped Ken's plan to send a bus to China by road, it still cost the taxpayer almost £500,000.

The Mayor said:
"I want to ensure every aspect is kept under tight financial control. There were some pretty unrealistic things planned, which would have cost a lot of taxpayer money, but which would have had marginal value to Londoners."

The original 2012 budget of £3.4 billion has nearly tripled to £9.3 billion. (and the rest??)

Meanwhile AFP reports:

London Mayor Boris Johnson slammed organisers of the 2012 Olympics that will be held in the British capital in an interview published Tuesday, saying they were clueless about what legacy the games would leave behind.

Johnson, elected mayor on May 1, said there was no "legacy masterplan" for the Olympics venues and insisted it was pointless ploughing money into the east London site if no-one knew "what on earth we're trying to achieve".

The Conservative Party politician took over from Labour's Ken Livingstone, who spearheaded the bid to secure the games for London. He has previously expressed concern at the spiralling costs of the project.

In an interview with London's Evening Standard newspaper, Johnson said he wanted a rethink to make sure Londoners were getting value for money from the games.

"There's no point sinking all of this money into east London unless it is actually going to produce a long-term return," he said.

"What we need to have is a complete overview of what on earth we're trying to achieve on the Olympics site and what in the long term is this really all about?

"So far, there's absolutely no sign of what you would call a legacy masterplan.

"There's no sign of anybody who has looked at this and said, 'Right, this is going to be London's Hyde Park of the east, this is going to be a university site.' No one has taken it and said, 'This is the future'.

"We need to get out skates on and work out what this thing is going to be for in the long term."
Johnson said there was no "convincing" long-term future for the main stadium as a home for athletics, the design for the aquatics venue made it difficult to transform into a leisure facility, while "nobody has got a clue" what to do with the huge media centre.

The cost of staging the Olympics and the legacy of what to do with Olympic sites once the two-week jamboree is over has long troubled host cities.

The 2012 London Olympics were originally predicted to cost 3.4 billion pounds (6.7 billion dollars, 4.3 billion euros). But the budget has now soared to 9.325 billion pounds.
Johnson was elected pledging to cut tax and waste at City Hall, giving Londoners "more bang for their buck".

On April 29, an influential committee of British lawmakers accused the 2012 organisers of lacking foresight and spending money "like water".

At the same time a new chance to squander some more cash has occured to Tessa Jowell, as the committee consider the appointment of a mascot (Gamesbid.com)

Marketing Week reports that the London 2012 organizing committee is considering a public competition to design a mascot for the 2012 Summer Games because of the negative publicity surrounding the design of the London 2012 logo.

A London 2012 spokeswoman said, “a competition of some kind is an option” but a decision had not yet been made. She said London 2012 will look at plans for the mascot over the next year.
When the 2012 logo was launched last year there was a public and media backlash. The cost of the design at 400,000 pounds also caused outrage, reports Marketing Week.

Meanwhile Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell told an audience Wednesday at the CBI Business Summit that when London Mayor Boris Johnson is handed the Olympic torch at the Beijing Summer Games, levels of scrutiny towards the 2012 Games will shoot up, and she figures the media will do nothing to help.

Jowell said, “the media whacks the Olympics every day, and a large proportion of that is totally uninformed and wrong. But you have to live with that”.

But she added that public support remains high. “I think it’s because of the ambition parents have for their children and the ambitions young people have for themselves”.

She said, “the 2012 Games will be a huge challenge but the scale of ambition in this country is unprecedented. Just remember – no one thought we should bid for the Olympics. No one thought we would win. But we did”.

Insufficient funding...

2008-06-08T01:54:00.001-07:00

From the Health service journal last month:

A national sports medicine centre at the heart of plans for a lasting health legacy from the 2012 Olympics may never be built, HSJ has learned.
The Department of Health has pledged repeatedly that the centre will be built to promote sports education and research and provide rehabilitation facilities. It was to be a centre of excellence for sports and exercise medicine, hosting training placements for doctors.
A 2005 DH press release said the centre "would have been developed regardless of the outcome of the Olympic bid".
The promise was repeated in chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson's annual reports published in 2005 and 2006, but was absent from last year's report.
Sir Liam's 2006 report said: "The centre will not only be used by the world's top athletes but will also be extended to local NHS and primary care facilities, providing services for anyone who plays sport and supporting the goal of increasing physical activity."
Responsibility for the plans shifted to the British Olympic Association, then UK Sport, and now to the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport.A UK Sport spokesman said there were "no firm proposals" to build a national centre for sports medicine.
A Department for Culture, Media, and Sport spokeswoman said the centre was only "one of the options being looked at".
A source close to the 2012 bid said this meant "we're not going to get the best out of the Olympics".
The news follows the warning from NHS London that its 2012 group faced "insufficient resourcing".
Posted by Tony Reeve at 12:03

Taxpayers foot the bill

2008-06-07T05:36:00.000-07:00

This is from Journal Live, coming from Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Interesting that regions have been told to fund a three day event to celebrate the Games, will receive no central funding for it, and, with reduced funds available from the Lottery due to repeated raids on it by the IOC, have no chance of obtaining funding from that source. If were one of the worthy burghers of that grey city on the Tyne, where the thoughts are usually based on sagacity and plain speech, I would consider making a brief two fingered gesture to central government, the IOC and London:

TAXPAYERS in the North East will have to fund the region’s Olympic celebrations as the Government refuses to hand over any cash for a series of cultural events across the UK, it emerged last night.

Critics have accused the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) of “forcing” the region to celebrate the London games as it emerged the bill will be handed to councils.

After repeatedly raiding lottery charity cash previously destined for the North East and other regions to fund the London games, the Government has now landed city officials with a bill for organising celebrations to mark the hand over of the Olympic torch this September. Council officers already struggling with much reduced culture budgets thanks to a tight three-year spending settlement have been told they must hold a three-day series of events to mark the start of the UK’s Olympic preparations this September.

The London organisers have promised the games will have an impact on every part of the country, and appointed eight creative programmers to ensure events take place under a project dubbed the Cultural Olympiads.

But in what some have labelled a sign of the Government’s real level of commitment, there has been no funding provided for the first of these events, which includes plans for cities such as Newcastle to simply “make some noise”.

Olympic bosses have also banned regional organisers from using the controversial Olympic logo, itself criticised as a waste of money.

Pauline Allen, executive member for culture, leisure and customer service, called on the Government to offer “real financial support to the rest of the nation, not just London”.
Ms Allen said: “We’ve been quite taken aback by the Government’s approach to this.
“There is a very real feeling that they messed up on the planning for the London games and now the regions are having to pay for this.

“We want the games to be a success but they are really jeopardising support for this by refusing to put the measures in place to make it a truly national event.

“The funding for these games has been a disaster from the start, they have no intention of providing us with a grant for this, we have lost funding in the North East due to Olympics raids on the lottery funds and now we are told to ‘make a noise’ about the impact the games will have on the country. It is about time that the Government showed that it wants to involve people in Newcastle and the rest of the UK because right now it looks like they want London games and that they simply do not appreciate us.

“I and everyone at the council really wants Newcastle to benefit and do this right, it’s just a shame the Government doesn’t seem to want to show its support with financial help.”
Newcastle North MP Doug Henderson said the matter should be dealt with by the Olympic Committee and added “it is not something that should be forced on to taxpayers”.

Blaydon MP Dave Anderson, said he was hopeful the Government and North East councils could work together on the build up to the games.

“I think we have great potential, especially in Newcastle and Gateshead, to do some wonderful events in the build up to the games.

“I am hopeful that if we can put something impressive together that maybe we can ask for at least some match-funding for this.”

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport was asked if it agreed the region was being forced to pay for the cost of celebrating the games but a press officer failed to get back for comment.

Boris takes charge

2008-06-07T05:31:00.001-07:00

From the Guardian - I'm delighted to see Boris Johnson is fully aware of the concern of so many as to the burgeoning costs of the 2012 Olympics - let's hope that he can the really appropriate action we have been waiting for:

The London mayor, Boris Johnson, vowed to bear down on the rising costs of the 2012 Olympics yesterday, citing Guardian revelations about the project as a cause of legitimate public concern over the budget.

Last week the Guardian revealed that the original budget for the Olympic aquatic centre of £73m had been exceeded as early as January 2005, and the new mayor acknowledged significant unease about the final cost of staging the games.

Speaking as a coordination team from the International Olympic Committee began a three-day inspection of London's progress, Johnson said he would be focusing on delivering value to taxpayers.

Johnson has appointed David Ross, non-executive deputy chairman of Carphone Warehouse, as his nominee to represent him on the board of the London Organising Committee of the games, with a roving brief to monitor costs.

Johnson will also retain the services of Ken Livingstone's former adviser Neale Coleman as his Olympic specialist. Coleman will retain his seat on the Olympic Delivery Aurthority board. "I have been elected on a manifesto of delivering taxpayer value and that is what we will do," Johnson said. "There are public concerns out there about the budget, people have seen the headlines in the Guardian and they are concerned, and our intention is where we can find savings to make savings.

"My first impression is that a great deal of fantastic work has already been done but we have to ensure that we maximise the yield for London. David Ross will be my nominee on the board and have a roving brief to look at the whole project."

Johnson met inspectors from the IOC for the first time yesterday and told them his approach would be guided by adapting the Olympic motto. "My approach will be 'Citius, Altius, Fortius, sed non carius', which translates as 'Faster, Higher, Stronger, but not more expensive'," he said.
He is also likely to focus on the sporting legacy of the games in London more than his predecessor Ken Livingstone, whose primary motivation was regeneration. "There is a tension ... between the sporting legacy and the regeneration aspect, and the trick will be to deliver on the first without disturbing the necessary work going on the latter," he said.

The opening day of the IOC's visit was dominated by discussion of the sporting aspects of the games. The commission also visited several venues, including the Olympic park, where construction on the main stadium will begin on Thursday.

Aiming to reduce costs/displaced businesses

2008-06-07T05:19:00.000-07:00

I see from yesterday's Guardian that the IOC has a cunning plan to reduce the costs of the 2012 Olympics - cut down on the venues and facilities. Forget the superfluous people making a fortune from the preparations of the Games, the high salaries and the cost of "advisors" - far better to give a lower quality service and facilities. The article reads as follows:

London 2012 yesterday received formal approval for a series of venue changes at the Olympic Park. The International Olympic Committee's executive board meeting here approved a request from London to abandon its plans for a bespoke fencing venue, reduce the capacity of the handball arena from 10,000 seats to 7,000, and shift the BMX track to a new permanent site within the park.

The alterations to the park layout will produce a significant saving in construction costs, but London 2012 organisers insist that the changes are primarily driven by operational considerations and the desire to leave a legacy of sustainable venues.

Fencing events will move to the ExCel arena outside the Olympic Park, a facility that was not available at the time of London's bid. In addition, the basketball arena originally planned for the southern end of the park will move north, easing congestion in the south.

The BMX park will move to its permanent post-games site next to the velodrome and the handball arena will be re-oriented and reduced in size to leave a multi-sports hall with seating for up to 7,000 people. London organisers felt the original capacity of 10,000 could be unsustainable after the games.

Sebastian Coe, the chairman of London 2012, said: "We have always said that our intention was to build truly sustainable venues which will provide a strong elite and community use legacy for sport for generations to come, long after the final race has been run in 2012.

"These small changes to our temporary venue locations in the park are designed to maximise the sporting legacy we leave behind - as well as optimise the games-time experience for athletes and spectators. The IOC has recognised our desire to focus on a tangible legacy and approved these changes today."

Gilbert Felli, the IOC's executive director, said: "Our feeling is that the changes to the venues are not because of the budget. It was because the Olympic green was rather crowded. We are always looking towards sustainability and with the extension of the ExCel arena there was the opportunity to not build a temporary venue, and we are very happy with the move."
------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile, Time Online is taking up the cudgel on behalf of the businesses disrupted by the creation of the Olympic Park. To me it sounds as if the cudgel has already been wielded by the IOC and its cohorts. Is this how the budget will be maintained?:

Three years since the capital won the right to stage the 2012 Olympic Games, dozens of businesses that had to make way for the Olympic Park in East London are still fighting for compensation.

Of the 350 companies served with compulsory purchase orders (CPOs), it is alleged that more than 80 per cent are still fighting for a financial settlement. The head of one is preparing to take the London Development Agency (LDA), which issued the orders, to the High Court.

“I assumed that our business would be able to carry on where it left off,” said Ivor Gershfield, chief executive of HMM, a newspaper wrapping and delivery business. “That is the idea of a CPO. What happened was a Mugabe-style theft of our land. We were given assurances that they broke.”

Most businesses that had had a compulsory purchase order were “scared that if they fall out with the LDA, they won't get anything”, he said.

Many deals that the authority agreed were done on the understanding that a confidentiality agreement would prevent the business going public about what it had been through. One business that received compensation from the authority moved to a new site — and has received a demand that it move again.

Seamus Gannon, who runs Bedrock Crushing, a concrete recycling company, said: “I'm not frightened to speak out because I'm getting screwed anyway. They bulldozed me. The way they dealt with me was to say, 'Here's an offer and that's it'.”

Mr Gannon is taking his case to a lands tribunal. He said that he spent £180,000 on clearing his site in Marshgate Lane and moving, but the LDA paid only £75,000 in compensation. As for the 2.7 acres of property he evacuated, the LDA paid £2.5 million for it; Mr Gannon said that it had been valued at between £4million and £6million.

Christine Norman, of T&N Commercials, a vehicle repair business with a staff of 11, said it had operated out of Marshgate Lane for 20 years and received just over £300,000 for a move that professional advisers estimated at £900,000 to £1.4 million.

“We were kind of threatened,” she said. “We said, 'That figure isn't very high.' The LDA then said 'Accept it, or we'll give you something less and you can go to court and fight it'.”

In Marshgate Lane, T&N Commercials could work on five vehicles simultaneously. In July, the business moved to Hackney and can now work on just two. Ms Norman said that they were operating on a break-even basis, having initially lost £5,000-£10,000 a week. “We weren't treated fairly,” she said. “I'm not looking for bundles, just £150,000 to sort us out.”

Mr Gershfield, of HMM, calculates his company's losses at £700,000. In March last year, he spoke of taking his complaint to a judicial review.

He said: “They then said to me, 'You go to judicial review and we will concentrate our efforts on fighting it rather than processing your claim'.”

On June 8 he received £365,000 - followed in July by £200,000. But the cost of the CPO, he claims, is £1.25 million and still rising. HMM eventually settled on a site in Barking but because of the extra delivery costs it is still suffering a fall in profits of £5,000 a week.

Mr Gershfield is taking his case to a lands tribunal. The LDA, he said, was pressing a legal technicality that would prevent this. “If that succeeds we will go for them in the High Court,” he said.

After the businesses initially received the CPOs, 156 businesses from around the Marshgate Lane artery appointed a group known as the Professional Team to act as intermediaries. It consisted of a property firm, Jones Lang LaSalle, a law firm Finers Stephens Innocent and Balcombe Group, a loss assessment management company.

Balcombe Group are in the midst of a legal dispute for the losses they themselves incurred. Nick Balcombe said: “Everything has dragged on and on. For whose benefit? The LDA will have spent more in costs with us than if they had paid me three years ago.”

Finers Stephens Innocent are still acting for more than 80 businesses. “These businesses have been given a hard time,” Mark Stephens said. “Ken Livingstone [mayor when the Olympic bid was won] didn't make proper financial provision for this. It is clear that both he and the Government made a blunder of billion-pound proportions. And the small businesses Livingstone chose to ignore. He used fairly heavy-handed tactics to get rid of them.”

The LDA said yesterday that Bedrock Crushing was an example of a company that had “successfully” relocated. The LDA also disputed the number of displaced companies, saying that only 208 were affected, of which 102 were still negotiating.

The clearing of the Olympic Park area, which is equivalent in size to Hyde Park, was a huge operation with 425 residents and 35 traveller families also having to be moved on. Those under the 2012 umbrella have hailed it as a success story.

The businesses are hoping that the LDA will be more conciliatory under Boris Johnson, the new mayor.

The Flatpack Games

2008-05-29T05:41:00.000-07:00

It looks as though the 2012 Olympics will owe something to Ikea for the ideas now being produced - this from newsdesk.org:

The Olympic Torch makes a world tour, why not an Olympic stadium?

The Guardian is reporting that organizers of the London 2012 Olympics are planning to build a so-called flatpack stadium, which could be partly dismantled and shipped to another location.
According to the Guardian, London organizers have spoken about the proposal with planners for Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics.

The paper quoted Chicago organizer Doug Arnott as saying: "If we could box it up and ship it to the next games, that's something that could benefit the Olympic movement. This is to do with the responsible use of materials and trying to avoid leaving infrastructure that will burden a city."

The Guardian posits that such re-use of materials could open up the possibility of developing nations hosting future Olympic Games.

But another spokesman for Chicago's 2016 bid discounted the Guardian's report.

"We have not had discussions with them about purchasing seats or moving any seats over at this point," Patrick Sandusky told the Chicago Tribune.

The Tribune also quoted Arnott as saying: "Seats don't make a lot of sense. They are readily available and readily disposable."

--------------------------

Not a bad idea, really, especially as it looks as though there will be another raid on the funds due to the decrease in property values. It is calculated that there will be some 4,000 accommodation units - mostly flats and apartments - for the athletes and officials built in the East End of London, which will subsequently be made available for public use. With falling property prices, and the fact that developers are no longer looking for new construction work generally, there is concern that costs of construction will exceed eventual proceeds, particularly after the time lag between the two is taken into account.

It is worth adding that another website - GamesBids.com - is saying that it is unlikely that such a move with regard to the stadium between London and Chicago is unlikely with regard to seating. They also said no discussions relating to the transfer of a stadium have taken place, and that it would be dependent upon costs of transport.

Tessa Jowell's responsibility for Olympic cash

2008-05-05T02:52:00.000-07:00

From the Guardian, 3 May 2008:

I am deeply concerned by Tessa Jowell's refusal to accept any responsibility for the enormous increases in the Olympics budget (I did not mislead anyone about the cost of the 2012 Olympics, Response, May 2). It's especially hard to believe Tessa's defence when Ken Livingstone calls the original budget a "guess" and a "con trick".

While Tessa is right to say that certain costs could not have been predicted, there are also others which could - and should - have been. Contingency, which now stands at £3.72bn, is one of these. This money is meant to be used as a last resort, but looks increasingly like an all-purpose slush fund to cover the cracks in the original budget. The main problem with this approach is that when faced with growing financial insecurity, there is no money left in the pot to balance the budget.

Finally, while Tessa talks about the long-term benefits of the Olympics, she doesn't mention the recent culture select committee report which criticises the government for failing to provide the detailed legacy plans that would make this vast expense worthwhile. After last night's election results, Labour claims it is listening - so let's stop defending the indefensible and get on instead with delivering the best games in history and cultivating the lasting legacy that we all want to create.

Don Foster
MPLiberal Democrat spokesman for culture, media and sport

The seamy side of the Games

2008-05-05T02:48:00.000-07:00

From the BBC's website, 23 March 2007:

The 2012 London Olympics could become a magnet for human traffickers bringing in prostitutes and illegal workers, the government has said.

The Home Office has unveiled plans to combat gangs who imprison women and force them into the sex trade and push men into forced labour.

The UK will allow freed victims to stay for at least 30 days for counselling.

Police Minister Vernon Coaker said human trafficking was "a form of modern-day slavery".

The Home Office's action plan says: "There is little doubt that there will be many who will seek to prosper from the Olympics being held in London.

"Hospitality, catering and construction workers will be required. Criminal elements are expected to exploit the situation by establishing themselves in London from now on."

An influx of young male sports fans, such as happened during the 2006 World Cup in Germany, could see a rise in demand for prostitutes, it adds.

The government has signed a European convention giving human trafficking victims more time to recover from their ordeal before deciding whether to help police.

The latest Home Office figures, from 2003, suggest at least 4,000 women from abroad have been forced into prostitution.

Mr Coaker said: "Frankly it brings tears to your eyes. It simply cannot carry on."

He said prostitutes' clients could face prosecution for rape: "If we have got a situation where a man knowingly has sex with a woman he knows is not freely consenting to that, then I think that that could be considered as rape."

The Home Office action plan calls for specialist trafficking teams to be set up at UK ports and airports.

It is also planning to set up an advice line for police, immigration staff and social workers and a national system to identify victims more quickly.

According to reports, "slave auctions" are being staged on the concourses of British airports.
Grahame Maxwell, of the UK Human Trafficking Centre, said information programmes were in place in countries like Bulgaria and Romania to prevent people being conned into going abroad.

One woman, imprisoned and forced to be a prostitute, had been raped 50 times on Christmas Day, the home office report said.

Another had been beaten to death after being held as a domestic slave and made to live in an outhouse, where she suffered from trench foot - caused by damp and wet conditions.

Being forced to have sex 30 times a day was common, Mr Maxwell said.

He added: "The average price for a trafficked woman is £2,000 to £3,000, but up to £8,000 is reported in some cases.

"We are talking about people here. These are prices that are being paid for individuals.

"There was £8,000 charged for two 15-year-old virgins from Lithuania."

Mr Coaker said trafficked children detected at Heathrow had started "kicking and screaming because they don't believe the police officer is trying to help them.

"They've been so deceived that if they don't get there will be big consequences."

Criminals had threatened to harm their families at home if they escaped, the government said.
The decision to sign up to the European agreement has cross-party backing.

Shadow home secretary David Davis said it was necessary for "moral reasons", such as protecting exploited victims, some of whom are forced to have sex with up to 40 men a day.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell said: "Slavery still exists in the UK and we must tackle modern-day slavery wherever we find it.

"The terrible reality is that women and children are falling victim to human trafficking."

There were an 4,000 victims of trafficking working in prostitution in the UK during 2003, according to Home Office estimates.

It is thought the problem has grown since then.

UK Taxpayers will pick up the bill

2008-05-03T03:01:00.001-07:00

From Russia Today:

The organisers of the 2012 London Olympics are facing harsh criticism for drastically increasing the required budget.

The Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee has released a report on Olympic spending, its first since Olympic Minister Tessa Jowell admitted the price tag had risen to £ 9.3 billion (US$ 18.5 billion). Four years ago, the Government said the cost to the taxpayer would be only £4 billion."The government were determined to get the bid and therefore they put in an underestimate. And I suspect a lot of people at the time in the department knew it was going to cost a lot more than £ 4 billion. Everybody is extremely angry that frankly they were not told the truth about the cost of it and they are having to pay for it whatever your view of sport is," said Conservative M.P.Edward Leigh, Chairman of The Committee of Public Accounts.

Edward Leigh went on to say that the report is extremely important because it sheds light on a real scandal.

“This report focuses principally on the early stages of the planning of the budget for London 2012, much of which took place three or four years ago. A lot has changed since then and there is clear progress to report. We welcome the parliamentary scrutiny from the Public Accounts Committee and are working with the National Audit Office to ensure value-for-money at all times,” said Tessa Jowell, Olympics Minister.

Another expenditure is the block-booking of almost 2,000 rooms in some of the capital’s most exclusive hotels, reserved for international delegates and their spouses. This is expected to cost ₤10 million.

The officials in London will also be treated to a fleet of over 3,000 chauffeur-driven cars, despite the promise of a green Games.

I did not mislead over costs...

2008-05-03T02:57:00.000-07:00

I did not mislead anyone about the cost of the 2012 Olympics

We always said we would have to review the total budget. That's exactly what we did, says Tessa Jowell

Tessa Jowell
The Guardian,
Friday May 2 2008

This article appeared in the Guardian on Friday May 02 2008 on p45 of the Leaders & reply section. It was last updated at 00:05 on May 02 2008.

Your article about the public accounts committee's report on the London Olympics repeated the fallacy that the budget for the games in 2012 is £9.3bn (Parliament and public misled over Olympics budget, say MPs, April 22).

You reinforce the idea that this £9.3bn - not the final budget, which may be lower - is simply for a two-month sporting festival, but in fact the funding package is for a much bigger project: using the opportunity of 2012 to engineer the wholesale regeneration of a deprived part of our capital city.

You reported that the government misled the public and parliament over the Olympic budget. That is untrue.

You quote Edward Leigh, the committee chairman, as saying that "the estimated cost at the time of the bid ... ignored foreseeable major factors such as contingency provision, tax obligations, and policing and wider security requirements". But behind this language there is a more prosaic truth. I did not mislead anyone. I made it very clear to parliament that if we were successful in bidding for the games, we would have to review the budget. That is exactly what we did.

Yes, the funding package is higher than the original estimates. But there are very good reasons for this. For example, it simply was not possible before we were awarded the games to fully survey the huge Olympic Park site, digging up the gardens of private homes or concrete floors of businesses to be fully aware of how contaminated the ground was and how big our task is.

We did not deliberately omit or somehow forget about VAT. When the budget was being developed, the delivery body that would build the venues and infrastructure did not exist. We could not therefore have determined its tax status at that stage. And on security, contrary to comments from Edward Leigh, there was an allowance made in the original budget. But this had to be revised upwards after the 7/7 attacks on London.

Of course the public-sector funding package for the games represents a very substantial investment of public money. But look at what we are getting. This is the biggest regeneration project in Europe, creating the largest new urban park in 150 years. We are cleaning up a highly contaminated site and restoring it to public use, removing 50 pylons and building the equivalent of a medium-sized new town, creating thousands of new jobs and homes as well as leaving a raft of top-quality sporting venues and facilities, all of which will benefit millions of people for generations to come.

We could have gone for an easier and cheaper option: just knocking the topsoil off the land and making the ground fit for a few weeks of sport - but the short-term gain would have been a long-term loss, an opportunity squandered.

The overarching discipline is to ensure that we keep to time and budget. So far we are on track - the National Audit Office has said that the March 2007 funding package "represents a significant step forward in putting the games on a sound financial footing". I am determined to ensure that we keep it that way and achieve value for money in everything we do.

· Tessa Jowell MP is minister for the Olympics jowellt@parliament.uk

I'll huff and I'll puff....

2008-05-01T08:43:00.001-07:00

From The Todmorden News (never slow to miss a chance to promote local industry):

NO-ONE could accuse Barbara Jones of backing down from a challenge and now she has her sights set on the Olympics.

As one of Britain's leading straw bale builders Amazonails, originally a women's roofing company established by Barbara in 1989, is at the forefront of sustainable building practices. And this technology could be used to build the London Olympic village for 2012, argued Barbara.

"We could build totally sustainable housing for the athletes, which could be used by housing associations after the event.

"We think we've got the best ideas but it's very difficult getting past the vested interests in the building trade. At the moment we're working out the costs and we will put in a bid. We could involve students, schools, local communities and create an education programme around the scheme: it wouldn't just be the building it would be about involving everyone," Barbara enthused.

Education is one of the main pillars of the Amazonails ethos, along with sustainable building and a belief in people and positive lifestyles. And, of course, there's Barbara's crusade against cement, the main ingredient in concrete.

"In our buildings we avoid cement and plastic; both unsustainable materials. Cement is one of the main emitters of green house gases. It is a very modern material so we've gone back to old techniques of building before cement was available. For example we don't dig foundations, we use earth foundations, as our predecessors did. It's all about understanding the materials. We use sustainable materials, old and new, such as lime, which was used by our ancestors 12,000 years ago, and foamglass which is a structurally strong material made from recycled bottles that offers great insulation."

And insulation is another of those key words; one which should be taken more seriously in this world of rising energy prices and climate change fears, argued Barbara, who champions the idea of problem solving designs coupled with the best materials.

"If we design our houses better we don't need to heat them: even during the winter. If the house is in the right place, facing the right direction and with design features that allow for the heat from the sun to be absorbed and released slowly, there's not need for heating at all."

We need to plan better; we need to value our lifestyles more and instead of cramming as many houses as possible into a single plot we should spread houses out and allow natural sunlight into our lives. Our homes have such a big impact on our lives and affect our happiness. As a society we don't value our housing and it's now starting to show in the social ills in society."

Amazonails are here to show the way forward into a brighter future, in more ways than one. Constructing a straw building, with the help of Barbara and her team of dedicated builders and ambassadors, is a unique experience.

Spendthrift 2012 Olympics

2008-04-30T01:11:00.000-07:00

AFP Press today:

LONDON — The London 2012 Olympics organisers were slammed Wednesday by an influential committee of British lawmakers for lack of foresight and spending money "like water".

The scrutiny body lashed the government, saying the soaring budget had undermined confidence in the London Games and accused the organisers of having no clear vision of how the event would increase sports participation.

The Culture, Media and Sport select committee singled out the planned Acquatics Centre, which has more than tripled in cost from an estimated 75 million pounds (95 million euros, 148 million dollars) when London bid for the Games to the final 242 million pounds announced this month.
"It appears to be over-designed... and an expensive way of providing the facilities for water sports needed during and after the Games," the committee's report said.

"The history of the Aquatics Centre shows a risible approach to cost control and that the Games organisers seem to be willing to spend money like water."

The lawmakers said the Olympics should not exceed its 9.325 billion pound budget and that any unspent money should be returned.

The surge in cost from the original budget of 3.4 billion pounds has damaged confidence in the management of the event, they said.

There could be no excuse for the budget rising again, said committee chairman John Whittingdale.

"We were pleased to find that, since we last reported, a more realistic approach has been adopted, and we expect that the Games should be delivered comfortably within budget," he said.
"We are disappointed that, so far, little progress has been made in setting out a clear strategy for delivering a permanent increase in sporting participation, despite this being a key feature of the bid."

The committee doubted whether sales of land and property after the Games would bring in as much money as the government and the London mayor's office predict.

They also said it may be "very difficult" to raise 100 million pounds from the private sector for elite sport, as required by the government.

Poor may be trampled on in 2012 gold rush

2008-04-22T10:21:00.000-07:00

This is Local London - yesterday:

The 2012 Olympics may fail to benefit the poorest people in east London, a think-tank has warned.

Research by New Economics Foundation (NEF) has found small local businesses will not be able to compete with consultants, developers and large companies, who are better equipped to exploit commercial opportunities.

The report, entitled Fools' Gold, also warns that people will be priced out of the housing market as gentrification inflates the cost of living.

NEF say there are clear warning signs that the London Olympics may go in the same direction as previous games in failing to live up to regeneration promises.

The report calls for mechanisms to be put in place to guarentee a positive legacy for those most in need.

NEF fear land will be sold off to the highest bidder to repay massive debts and point out that only 11 per cent of the 500 Olympic contracts awarded so far have gone to companies in the five Olympic boroughs.

It says strict branding rules mean local community organisations are unable to leaverage any value from the Games.

NEF also say multi-national companies, which have won lucrative sponsorship contracts, have no obligation to sub-contract to local businesses or employ local people.

Josh Ryan-Collins, NEF researcher and co-author of the report, said: "Urgent action must be taken to prevent the communities of East London being trampled in the Olympic gold rush.

"The regeneration legacy was not just an enlightened addition to the Games's plan which would be good to achieve if possible.

"It was central to London's original Olympics bid. Promises and undertakings were made in the bid on behalf of the city and the nation; these must be achieved if we are all to keep faith with the assurances made to the world on our behalf."

The report set out a ten-point rescue plan which the think-tank insists can ensure benefits for local people.

It says community benefit should be considered when during the tendering process and contracts broken down to allow local businesses to bid.

The NEF also called for local community groups to be given a place on the Olympic and regeneration board and the creation of a asset-holding body to ensure assets are owned by the local community.

The London Development Agency insisted that it ignores to facts to say not enough is being done.

The East End will not benefit from the Games

2008-04-22T10:18:00.000-07:00

The 2012 Olympic games will not fulfil its promise to improve the lives of east London's poorest residents, according to a report released today.

The New Economics Foundation, an independent thinktank, says the games are in danger of following previous Olympics, which boosted tourism, leisure and infrastructure but failed to improve the lives of the poorest residents.

Vast amounts of money injected into the area could leak out to consultants, developers and large companies, the report says, leaving local businesses unable to compete and local people priced out of the housing market because of gentrification.

"Urgent action must be taken to prevent the communities of east London being trampled in the gold rush," said Josh Ryan-Collins, co-author of the report. "The regeneration legacy was not just an enlightened addition to the plan for the games - it was central to the bid."

In the bid, the government and Olympic delivery bodies promised residents they would regenerate Lower Lea Valley, one of the UK's most disadvantaged areas.

"Local training centres are not getting funding from the Olympic authorities. If the unemployed don't have the skills they won't get the jobs," said Abdul Dumbuya, head of UXL, a Hackney training centre.

A spokesperson for the London Development Agency, which is in charge of the regeneration, said: "We are working closely with the Olympic partners, the host boroughs and those living and working around the site to ensure the venues leave a lasting legacy accessible to all."

MPs are saying the cost of the Games will exceed £12 Billion

2008-04-22T10:12:00.000-07:00

CBC News today:

LONDON - The British government's financial watchdog has criticized the budget for the 2012 London Olympics and warned that costs could rise further.

The Committee of Public Accounts released a report on the Olympic budget on Monday - its first since Olympic Minister Tessa Jowell announced in March 2007 that the overall cost of staging the games had risen to 9.325 billion pounds (US$18.5 billion).

During the bidding process in 2004, the budget was forecast at 4.036 billion pounds (US$8 billion).

Committee chairman Edward Leigh said the huge budget increase and subsequent lack of specific information on how the money would be spent meant the public would find it "hard to be confident" that costs would not increase further.

"It is now clear that the estimated cost at the time of the bid ... was entirely unrealistic," Leigh said. "It ignored foreseeable major factors such as contingency provision, tax obligations and policing and wider security requirements.

"At the same time, the estimate of the extent to which the private sector would contribute funding towards the games has proved little more than wishful thinking."

The Committee of Public Accounts is made up of lawmakers and appointed by the House of Commons to examine public spending.

The Olympic Delivery Authority denied it had budgeted poorly.

"We believe we have a realistic budget and adequate contingency and are confident that we can deliver within it," ODA chief executive David Higgins said in response to the report. "We will allocate contingency to manage risks as we go forward as is common for any project of this scale and complexity."

Contingency has added 2.7 billion pounds (US$5.3 billion) to the Olympic bill - with 500 million pounds (US$993 million) used already. Tax and security costs are estimated to have added 1.4 billion pounds (US$2.7 billion).

The committee was also concerned that the extra 5.3 billion pounds (US$10.5 billion) added to the overall budget had not been itemized.

"The department has not specified what will be delivered in return for this expenditure and the current budget cannot be reconciled to the commitments in the original bid," the report said.
The committee said the revised 9.325 billion pound (US$18.5 billion) budget didn't include the cost of the acquisition of land for the Olympic Park or the cost to government departments working on games preparations. It also didn't include upgrading transport links.

"Any assessment of the costs and benefits of the games should reflect all the additional costs occurred," the report said.

Private funding to help build the venues and infrastructure had increased to 738 million pounds (US$1.4 billion) from the 165 million pounds (US$327.6 million) stated in the bid book.

The Olympic village, which had expected to be fully funded by private business, has now been given a 175 million pound (US$347.5 million) boost from the Olympic budget.

And few firms are bidding to build the venues.

"The Olympic Delivery Authority has had difficulty in achieving competition between bidders for contracts to deliver the main venues, with only one bidder emerging for the main stadium," the report said.

The ODA said it was three months ahead of schedule and would begin construction within the Olympic Park in May - three months early.

The committee was also critical of specific details on how venues would be used after the games.
"Seventy-five pence of every pound (US$1.48 of every US$1.90) we are spending is for long-term regeneration, so there is a very clear legacy for this project - world-class sporting facilities, thousands of new homes, schools, communities and health facilities, new transport links and utility infrastructure, all in a brand new urban park," Higgins said.

The ODA also said that more than one in 10 workers on the Olympic Park project had been unemployed before their current jobs, and that more than a third of those lived locally.

London's free newspaper, Metro, yesterday:

'Wishful thinking' ministers concocted an 'entirely unrealistic' budget for the London Olympics, a panel of MPs said on Monday.

Their original £2.7billion estimate has more then trebled to £9.3billion and could rise still further, warned the public accounts committee.

'The bid ignored foreseeable major factors such as contingency provision, tax obligations and policing,' said chairman Edward Leigh.

Blame for the increase, announced in March 2007, rested with Olympics minister Tessa Jowell, mayor Ken Livingstone and Gordon Brown, said shadow Olympics minister Hugh Robertson.
Mrs Jowell claimed much had changed since the first estimate.

Meanwhile, a report by the New Economics Foundation found only 11 per cent of the £1billion of Games contracts had been won by companies in the five Olympic boroughs.'

London Today - today:

Ministers' claims to have the £9.3 billion costs of the London Olympics under control were dealt a blow today.

They were castigated by an influential group of MPs for hugely underestimating the bill for the Games, now £5billion higher than originally forecast.

The all-party Commons public accounts committee warned that the public should rightly have little confidence about government guarantees that the bill will not rise even higher.

The committee chairman, Tory MP Edward Leigh, said the original budget was "entirely unrealistic".

The committee believed the overall bill for the Games would top £12 billion once the costs of buying the land for the Olympics and staging them were taken into account - and yet its legacy for future generations remained unclear.

The final bill will be partially offset because the £2 billion cost of staging the Games is expected to be met from ticket sales, merchandising and broadcast revenue. The bill for buying up the land is expected to be covered by selling it afterwards.

The MPs, though, ripped into how the original estimate of just over £4billion in 2005 could have reached £9.3billion by March last year.

Ministers were criticised for not initially including the £2.7billion contingency provision in the estimate.

Some £600 million of funding for policing and wider security was also left out, as was the £836million in tax payable on construction and other activities. The predicted private sector contribution of £738 million tumbled to £165 million. The Olympic Delivery Authority's programme delivery budget has risen to £570 million, from £16 million after it had difficulty drumming up competitionfor contracts, with only one bidder for the main stadium.

Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell said the report focused mainly on early stages of budget planning.

Construction of the stadium would start later in the spring, three months earlier than planned, the site for the athletes' village had been cleared and digging of tunnels to carry underground power lines had been completed on time and on budget. She added: "We are heartened by progress so far and the International Olympic Committee's view that we are ' operationally and financially' on track."

ODA chief executive David Higgins said: "We believe we have a realistic budget and adequate contingency." He added: " Seventyfive pence of every pound we are spending is for long-term regeneration, so there is a clear legacy for the project - world class sporting facilitiesthousands of new homes, schools, community and health facilities, new transport links and utility infrastructure, all in a brand new urban park."

Shadow Olympics minister Hugh Robertson said much of the promised legacy, such as ensuring more young people were playing sport after 2012, remained "uncosted and unplanned".

--------------------------------

ITV also announced that the Mayor of London has agreed that they looked in the sky and plucked a figure out of the air and they would have to work it out later - and then showed a film of him agreeing this! Tessa Jowell, of course, said that this was Ken "having a joke".

Aquatic centre costs treble

2008-04-08T10:55:00.001-07:00

When troubles come they don't come singly - from Reuters today:

The cost of building the showpiece aquatics centre for the 2012 London Olympics has trebled, organisers said on Tuesday, announcing UK company Balfour Beatty would build the venue.

The centre, designed by Baghdad-born architect Zaha Hadid, caused controversy when its stingray-shaped roof was scaled down and redesigned and Olympics minister Tessa Jowell criticised the costs in 2005.

The building will now cost 242 million pounds ($480 million), the Olympic Delivery Authority said on Tuesday, up from an original 73 million.

A bridge connecting it to the main park will cost another 61 million pounds.

The new price includes inflation and VAT costs, which the original price did not, as well as the price of scaling down the building for use after the Games.

The total bill for the Games has risen to 9.3 billion pounds from original estimates of 2.4 billion.

The ODA said the price was broadly in line with scaled up costings laid out last year.

After the Games, 17,500 temporary seats at the venue will be removed, leaving a swimming, diving and water sports arena with a capacity of 2,500-3,500.

Builder Balfour Beatty was the only company left in the bidding after France's Eiffel and Germany's Hochtief withdrew.

Jowell said on Tuesday she was delighted with the plans while Richard Rogers, chief adviser to the Mayor of London on architecture and urbanism, said: "Zaha Hadid's aquatics centre is likely to be the jewel in the crown of the Olympic Park for the next century."

Balfour Beatty was part of Metronet, the consortium charged with upgrading much of London's tube network which collapsed after running up 2 billion pounds of unscheduled costs.
Shares in the company were down 0.9 percent by 1327 GMT.

Work on the aquatics centre is due to start this year and is scheduled to be completed in 2011.
Team Stadium, consisting of Sir Robert McAlpine, HOK Sport and Buro Happold, was also confirmed as the contractor for the 500 million pound main Olympic Stadium.

The velodrome builder is due to be appointed in the next few weeks.

Interesting, isn't it, that ever since the appointment of a single contractor, the price has risen...

Ken accused of 'hiding £20bn cost of Olympics'

2008-04-08T10:08:00.000-07:00

Those who have read this blog will know the name of Jack Lemley for the fact that he made a fortune out of heading the London Olympic Committee - but now at least he has shown what is potentially the reason why he quit - maybe the "Golden Handshake" paid to him was intended to buy his silence!

Ed Howker, Evening Standard08.04.08

Ken Livingstone faced accusations of "suppressing" the true cost of the Olympics today as a former senior official claimed it could top £20 billion.

The ex-chairman of the body responsible for delivering the Games claimed the Mayor had kept quiet fears about the soaring budget.

Jack Lemley, who was forced out of the Olympic Delivery Authority in October 2006, said he wanted to be upfront with the public that the cost of building the Stratford venues would be vast.

Mr Lemley said that from "very early on," the ODA was working to a cost estimate for the Games of "well over £12 billion" - more than three times the £3.3 billion publicly claimed at the time.

He told the Standard he was not allowed to tell the truth. The revelation will reignite controversy over the mounting cost of the 2012 project, with the official budget now standing at £9.3 billion.

But Mr Lemley said he believed the final cost would be £20 billion, because of the state of the Stratford site. "We were never able to really go public with the full budget," he said.

"That was always suppressed and the Mayor didn't want any significant growth in these budgets because it would create a bigger tax.

"I had advocated telling the public because I felt like the credibility of the process would be eroded ... as time went on and it became evident what the [real] costs are."

Last year Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell announced that the budget had risen to £9.3bn. But Mr Lemley described that figure as "ridiculous" and said he was now "positive" the budget would rise to £20 billion.

Mr Lemley said he was "run off" (forced out) from the ODA because " noone wanted to believe" the figure. "I was deeply concerned about the [ODA] organisation and the lack of urgency and I was worried about the dates - even then we had a desperately short time to do our work," he said.

Mr Lemley said the ODA had not taken sufficient account of "the polluted water issues" and "[a] sewage treatment plant that discharges hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of raw sewage" near the Olympic site.

He said £20 billion "was a figure I held all the time. But nobody wanted to hear it because they'd have to admit that they were culpable for suppressing the data."

Mr Lemley was forced out of the ODA in acrimony after being accused by the Mayor of working with failed Tube consortium Metronet.

In a letter to Tessa Jowell, seen by the Standard, Mr Livingstone said he could not 'continue to have confidence in Jack Lemley' because he was engaged in discussions with Metronet in a private capacity to seek work from them'.

But Mr Lemley said: "I had been cleared by everyone concerned - I wouldn't have done it otherwise. I think Ken is capable of anything."

An ODA spokesman said: "Jack's view is not shared by anyone working on the project. The Chairman believes the project can be delivered within budget."

A spokesman for the Department of Culture Media and Sport described the claims as "ridiculous," saying: "The budget for 2012 was still months away from being agreed when Mr Lemley left his job as chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority in the autumn of 2006. It is simply untrue to say that the real budget is £12bn and that this figure has been suppressed."

The Mayor's office declined to comment.

3 out 4 doubt the benefit of the Olympics

2008-04-03T01:30:00.000-07:00

From BBC News:

Almost three out of four people believe the 2012 Olympics will bring no real benefit to their area, a survey finds.

In London, host city of the Olympics, six out of 10 people said there was nothing really in the Games for them, the survey for BBC's Inside Out found.

Of the 2,000 adults questioned across the UK, just one in five said the Games would inspire them to take exercise.

Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell insisted the Games would bring unprecedented benefits to all the UK.

"We're not idiots here. We have actually given more thought and careful planning than any other city has ever done before, in making sure that people all round the country have a part in the Games and benefit from the Games," she said.

Some 73% of people thought there would be no noticeable benefit for their region, in the poll at the end of January for current affairs programme Inside Out.

Simon Topman, chief executive of Acme Whistles based in Birmingham, told the BBC that information surrounding the Games was "clouded in bureaucracy".

He said: "It's very hard to find out, despite the fact there are websites out there that you can visit, you have got to be pretty proactive and keep on the job yourself.

"There's all sorts of companies out there who are making things which aren't instantly obvious as connections to the Olympics, but can be."

According to the survey, the public also appear sceptical about one of 2012's other key promises - to use the Games to get the nation fitter.

The poll suggests that only one in five people would be inspired to take part in sport or exercise because of the Olympics.

Funding shortfall - another black hole?

2008-03-26T01:50:00.000-07:00

From The Time on line 20 March 2008:

Great Britain's target of finishing fourth in the medals table at the 2012 Olympic Games in London is at risk because of a funding strategy that depends on £100 million of private money that “may not materialise”, the public spending watchdog announces today.

The National Audit Office (NAO) criticises the Government's decision to seek a sixth of the £600 million package promised for elite sport from commercial routes such as sponsorship. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) appointed Fast Track, the sports consultant, to raise the extra money but has not specified how it would do so in a tighter economic environment where competition for sponsors is fierce, not least from the London Olympic Organising Committee.

The NAO report concludes that the aim of raising the additional cash may not be achievable. “A key risk is that the £100 million, 17 per cent of direct funding for sports, which the department plans to raise from the private sector, may not materialise or may become available too late to influence Great Britain teams' chances of success at the London Games,” the report says. “UK Sport will need to take firm decisions on which sports to stop funding and when, if it is to minimise the impact of such a funding shortfall on medal performance in 2012.”

The findings highlight an outstanding issue about 2012 Olympic funding that is exercising senior ministers and alarming the IOC. British Olympic officials have “ultimate goals” of finishing fourth in the medals table in London and second at the Paralympics. To meet these aims, they secured an extra £300 million, with £200 million from the Exchequer and £100 million from the private sector.

One of the NAO's key recommendations is that the DCMS quickly assesses the appetite among potential commercial donors so UK Sport can distribute money to individual sports under its next funding round in April 2009 knowing the full extent of its resources.

“Two years after Gordon Brown trumpeted an extra £300 million for elite sport in his March 2006 Budget, it is deeply shaming that UK Sport still have absolutely no guarantee that one third of that money will be forthcoming,” Hugh Robertson, the Shadow Olympics Minister, said. “The Prime Minister has let down both UK Sport and the individual athletes badly.”

Another key finding of the NAO report is that Britain risks jeopardising its 2012 medals target by funding sports that have little chance of producing a podium finish. The recommendation undermines the decision by Olympic officials to compete in every discipline in 2012, regardless of Britain's pedigree in the sport. They maintain that Britain should fully participate in the Games, following the example of Australia in 2000 as host nations automatically qualify for every event.

However, the report concludes that full participation may dilute UK Sport's “no compromise” approach announced in February 2005 before it secured the extra funding. “There is a risk that the wider goals, in particular their aim to help develop Great Britain teams which can compete creditably in every Olympic and Paralympic sport at London 2012, may distract UK Sport's focus and funding from its primary goal of winning medals,” the report says.

This highlights the risks of earmarking £3 million for handball until 2009 - essentially for a team to learn the game in Denmark - rather than putting more resources into sports with a track record. The NAO says that the “host nation effect” would not be enough to double Britain's gold medal tally of nine in Athens in 2004, when the team finished tenth in the table. This would require a “step change” in the performance of elite athletes.

John Steele, the UK Sport chief executive, emphasised that the NAO had found “significant progress” in the funding of elite sport. “We recognise, too, the risks they highlight - in particular the fact that our ambitions are dependent on the full funding package being available,” he said.

City will not pay

2008-03-13T14:28:00.000-07:00

Remember - you read this here:

From The Plymouth Herald today:
Cities like Plymouth will not be expected to contribute financially to the 2012 Olympic Games, Tessa Jowell, the Olympics Minister, said yesterday.
Ms Jowell, who was visiting Plymouth with Lord Coe, chairman of the 2012 London Organising Committee, said there were no plans to raise a council tax levy to pay for the Games.
"We have got the budget for the Games and we will keep it under tough scrutiny," she said during a visit to Plymstock School, a specialist sports college.
Lord Coe, the middle distance track legend, said that Plymouth's inclusion in the Pre-Games Training Camp Guide given to overseas teams could mean months of involvement in the year before the Games.

Of course, this is because we, the taxpayers of the UK, will be paying for some time afterwards...

Swimming pool costs

2008-03-10T11:15:00.000-07:00

Telegraph 29/2/08:
"the Aquatic Centre for the Olympic and Paralympic Games of 2012 is expected to cost more than £200 million."

Retail Bulletin 10/3/08:
Quoting on costs of erecting a civic centre by Land Securities in Corby:"The £60 million civic centre will provide a range of cultural and leisure facilities, including a performing arts centre and an Olympic-size swimming pool."

Er, am I missing something in the costings here?

Sponsors for the Olympics in 2012

2008-03-10T10:58:00.000-07:00

BT counting losses for backing Olympics
Simon Fluendy, Mail on Sunday9 March 2008, 1:01pm

BT faces a huge shortfall on a massive deal to sponsor the 2012 Olympics , according to industry sources.
As predicted in Financial Mail, BT has agreed to provide communications services for the event in East London, including the Olympic Village and outposts such as Weymouth in Dorset, where the sailing events will take place. BT is one of five 'Tier One' sponsors, which are expected to enjoy publicity worth at least £50m from their connection with the Games and being able to use the 2012 logo on adverts alongside the Olympic rings.
In return, the businesses will provide goods and services as part of the £2bn that the Government is trying to raise from big business to help fund the Games. So even though BT is set to get publicity worth £50m to £80m from its association, it is expected to provide goods and services worth about £125m.
The race to become the prime communications sponsor was hotly contested between BT and Orange, owned by state-controlled France Telecom.
Cynics claim BT will push the extra cost on to its 18m customers in Britain.
'It is not as if BT is really an international brand. It can't get the benefit of global exposure,' said one industry insider.
-------------------------------------------------------
From The Sunday Times March 9, 2008
Russia’s oil and gas giant Gazprom may fund 2012 Olympics
Dipesh Gadher

Gazprom, the Russian state-controlled energy group, could become a sponsor of the London Olympics.
The company has held talks with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) with a view to becoming one of 12 potential “global” sponsors after the Beijing Games this summer.
Gerhard Heiberg, chairman of the IOC’s marketing commission, flew to Moscow last November and is expected to meet Gazprom executives again later this month.
If a deal is struck it will come at a time when diplomatic ties between Britain and Russia hang in the balance. Gordon Brown is hoping that relations will improve following the election of Dmitry Medvedev as Russia’s new president.
Last week Gazprom was criticised for temporarily cutting gas supplies to Ukraine over unpaid bills. About 25% of Europe’s gas comes from Russia, most of it through the Ukraine.
The IOC has already signed up nine companies, including Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Visa, as global sponsors for 2009-2012. It aims to raise about £500m.
About £75m of this sum will go towards the London Olympics in 2012. London officials hope to raise a further £670m from “domestic” sponsors to help cover the £2 billion cost of hosting the Games.
A potential stumbling block to Gazprom’s Olympic ambitions is the fact that the IOC is allowing London to choose an exclusive sponsor from the “oil and gas” sector. For Gazprom to become an IOC global partner, it will probably have to bid separately for the London contract.
----------------------------------------------------------------
From AGI:
OLYMPICS: GAZPROM DENIES SPONSORING LONDON 2012
Rome, mar. 10

Russian giant Gazprom claims that it will not sponsor the 2012 London Olympics, thereby denying news reports published by the British media: "It is not true, Gazprom will not figure as a sponsor" said Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov to Ria Novosti agency. According to the Sunday Times the president of the Olympic Committee's marketing commission was scheduled to meet with Gazprom at the end of the month to negotiate the company's insertion amongst the 12 main sponsors of the Olympic games. According to the British newspaper sponsorship deals have been reached with 9 international companies. These include Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Visa.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Interesting to see that Gazprom has seen the light eventually. Wonder how many other companies need a tax loss?

Aquatic centre 2012

2008-01-30T10:31:00.000-08:00

The original estimated cost of the aquatic centre was £75 million - and then it was found that the cost was likely to be more, so the design was simplified. So effective was that simplification that it appears that the eventual cost will be £215 million, according to BBC London today, nearly three times the original estimate. That's more than the huge centrepiece of the Beijing Olympics; their stadium has cost £200 million. Needless to say, the ODC have said that this cost was included in the £9.3 billion, the current estimated cost of the Games. Just when does it stop being a Game?

There is no Black Hole?

2008-01-29T08:46:00.000-08:00

I see Tessa Jowell was appearing in Parliament today to explain the "Black Hole" (which she said did not exist) to be caused when the Games end, and the land is sold off at a value less than that she projected. Of course, by then she may well no longer be in office - so someone else will probably have to bear the brunt of complaints. Below are some recent comments from on line newspapers:
Peter Rhodes in the online Express & Star:
“THERE is no black hole in the finances of the London 2012 Olympics,” declares Olympics minister Tessa Jowell. Of course not, chuck. And if there was, we could always top it up with the profits from Northern Rock.
The Huddersfield Examiner:
THERE’S no doubting that many people view the annual Huddersfield Carnival as a highlight of their calendar.
The vibrant procession through the town centre, followed by a Greenhead Park gathering, has delighted crowds for a quarter of a century.
So it was a major disappointment last year when the carnival had to be called off because of summer downpours.
Now we learn that the event is in danger because of funding cuts.
Organisers have vowed to do all they can to overcome the problems, but are battling against the background of declining grants for arts and culture.
There is a strongly-held suspicion that money is being removed from worthy causes in order to meet the escalating costs of staging the Olympic Games in London in 2012.
While there is a buzz in the capital about the spectacle, not many in the regions are getting excited about it.
People will understandably see the threat to Huddersfield Carnival as the start of their fears being realised – the beginning of a mad scramble away from the regions and towards investment in London.
The problem is that once sponsorship and donations go away, they are extremely difficult to get back.
The Olympics are becoming a black hole, depriving other cultural and sporting organisations of much-needed funds in order to meet the ever-spiralling costs of hosting such a mammoth event.
While everyone rightly joined in the celebrations that greeted the announcement that London had won its bid, it was on the basis that the whole country would benefit from hosting the Games.
While clear evidence for that has yet to emerge, it is undoubtedly the case that the whole country will end up paying for them.
The Newham Recorder:
PARLIAMENT has voted to 'raid' the National Lottery of £1 billion to fill the reported 'black hole' in funds for the 2012 Olympics.
They approved the measure by a majority of 348 last week and immediately sent shock waves through art and charity organisations that fear a great reduction in grants.
Culture Secretary James Purnell promised it would be a one-off cash transfer.
It has been reported that over-estimated price projections on post-Games property sales would leave a £1.8 billion 'hole' in 2012 financing.
The claims were firmly rejected by London Mayor Ken Livingstone and Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell.
Ahgharad Mair in icWales:
BEFORE London won the 2012 Olympic Games, I was loudly cheering for Paris.
Most people throughout the UK did the same, even though, in June 2005, we were promised by Tony Blair’s Government that not a penny to pay for the Games would come from the public purse and £1.5bn would be raised by the National Lottery.
By November 2006, Tessa Jowell the Culture Secretary was questioned by MPs after speculation the cost of the Olympics was soaring as high as £8bn.
Now, in 2008, we’re told that Britain faces a £1bn black hole because of ‘ludicrous’ property price projections. In other words, the money ‘lent’ by heritage, sports and arts projects to the Olympics will probably never be paid back. Here in Wales we face the possible loss of a staggering £107m that could have been spent on other projects. A huge amount for such a small country.
Anyway, that’s just the financial mess. For example, Swansea and Cardiff are hoping to welcome two of the swimming squads in the weeks leading up to the Games, since both cities have Olympic size pools. But one of the world’s leading swimming teams, Australia, have already announced they won’t be coming anywhere near Wales. They’re going to Italy. Hmm.
Forget the Aussies, what about our own swimming squad. Wouldn’t it be great if Welsh kids could see their own heroes in training? No chance of that either. The British Olympic Association has confirmed that they won’t be using any common-or-garden public facilities for most sports in the crucial weeks before the Games begin. The British Olympic Association has chosen Aldershot Army camp as its base, complete with its own 50m pool and state-of-the-art track.
Is it just me, or is anybody else uneasy about this alliance between our armed forces and our Olympic team? The Ministry of Defence is hoping such links will only get stronger, that Aldershot will not just be a mere stopping-off point for Team GB en route to the 2012 Games, but that British elite athletes will begin to use its facilities regularly. There is already talk of UK Athletics going there to train before the World Championships in Berlin in 2009.
General Peter Everson has explained that the Army would be of benefit because if you “talk to any soldier, you will find real focus, terrific team spirit, enormous courage and huge commitment – all the qualities that I believe an Olympic athlete would need too”.
Well, he would say that wouldn’t he?
I just think it’s somewhat disgraceful and a real shame that the Olympic flame in Britain will now be associated with the British Army, and this will certainly not contribute in any way financially or morally to grassroots sport.
Why isn’t anybody making any fuss about it?
Isn’t it about time that here in Wales we demand to know exactly what we might be getting from the London Olympic Games? We are paying for these Games, and it’s about time that we had some returns. So many promises have already been broken, and so many hopes, such as better funding for sports at grassroots level, or indeed that our children will be able to see the best in the world train at our facilities, are dreams that are almost already dead.

Even less legacy

2008-01-25T01:07:00.000-08:00

Greenwich will also be host to the equestrian games, which will temporarily be set up outside the Queen's House, by Greenwich Park. The equestrians themselves have bitterly complained that the site is too small, and that it should be staged elsewhere. The number of people who will be able to watch is estimated to be a maximum of some 20,000 - compared to 150,000 who regularly attend other such events. This is the event in which the UK will have a strong team, including Princess Anne's daughter, and local interest is high. Interviewed on TV yesterday, a representative of the team wondered how the horses would even be able to enter the park without bringing them up and down the stairs at the Maritime Museum.
The site is only intended, like the shooting event's site, to be temporary - yet another example of the lack of legacy in the Games. Why can the event not be held outside central London - like the canoeing will be where the site is being built outside the M25 at Broxbourne? The ODC remains intransigent, and will not even consider such a move.

So much for the 'Legacy Games'

2008-01-21T10:36:00.000-08:00

For a mere £25million a temporary ground will be used for the Olympic shooting ground - one of the events that the British excel at. We have excellent facilities already available around the capital - and Bisley is synonymous with shooting and is world famous. Read on (from the BBC today):

Woolwich Barracks offers an iconic, but temporary, Olympic backdropLondon 2012 Olympics boss Sebastian Coe says there is "no reason at all" to move the Games' proposed site for shooting from Woolwich Barracks.
The sport's governing body, British Shooting, believes a temporary venue at Woolwich will leave no shooting legacy.
Several thousand people, including GB athletes, have signed a petition asking organisers to reconsider.
But Coe told the BBC he was "determined to leave a legacy" and issues around the venue would be resolved.
British Shooting chairman Philip Boakes has written to every MP in his quest to force the 2012 organising committee to move the venue elsewhere.
The existing top British shooting venue, Bisley, and a development in Dartford are the leading alternatives.
"If you're going to spend £25m then for goodness sake do something useful with it," Boakes told BBC Sport.
"Whatever money is spent [at Woolwich Barracks] is a waste of time and will leave no legacy."
Current plans for the venue will see the iconic Royal Artillery Barracks at Woolwich transformed into 50m, 25m and 10m shooting ranges for the duration of the Games.
While it is possible that some smaller air pistol ranges may be kept, the plans call for most of the venue to be dismantled once the Games are over.
Boakes said London 2012 organisers were missing an opportunity to permanently upgrade shooting facilities in the UK.
"We currently do not have a world class facility in the United Kingdom to train at, and we haven't held an international event for 30 years.
"Currently disciplines like air pistol set up in village halls, there are so few world class facilities throughout the UK in rifle and pistol.
"Bringing them all together at Dartford with a centre of excellence, and an academy, would be fantastic."
Lord Coe dismissed accusations that no lasting legacy would be left.
"I don't accept that," he told the BBC's James Munro.
"We are four-and-a-half years away from the opening ceremony, and we have teams making sure we do scope out a proper legacy.
"I'm determined to leave a legacy in every sport. An important part of that is not simply bricks and mortar, it's about being able to say that more people got engaged in sport.
"Sometimes governing bodies of sports overlook that."
Coe added that his team had come under pressure from the International Olympic Committee to site venues closer to the capital.
"Back in early 2004 the IOC were quite critical about how far some of our venues were from London.
"We looked at Bisley for shooting and decided we wanted to bring the sport closer into London.
"These are sports that need accessibility. They're great sports, they have returned a large chunk of our medals, and it is important they are understood and shared by a larger group of young people."
A petition on the 10 Downing Street website, calling on organisers to reconsider the location of the shooting venue, has attracted over seven thousand signatures since mid-December.
Names on the petition include those of Olympic shooters Richard Faulds MBE and Lesley Goddard.

Olympics 'black hole' could hit Lottery fund

2008-01-17T04:27:00.000-08:00

From today's Guardian...

Projects supported by the National Lottery could lose out if loans used to fund the Olympics cannot be recouped by land sales, it was reported today.In what is being described as a £1bn funding "black hole", the London Development Agency has suggested that property prices may not increase fast enough for the sale of land at the Olympic sites to generate the revenue owed to the National Lottery fund.
The London mayor, Ken Livingstone, knocked down these predictions as being "pessimistic", but conceded that a shortfall could mean decreased lottery funding.
The government estimated that it would earn around £1.8bn from the sale of land in East London after the Olympic games, according to figures included in a joint Memorandum of Understanding issued last summer by Livingstone and the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell. The figures were based on an ongoing rise in property values in Stratford over the past 20 years.However, if property value doesn't rise as steadily as expected, the sale of the land could generate only £800m - £1bn less than expected. The lower figure is based on an annual 6% rise, and is at the lower end of the range of expected revenue which had top limits of generating up to £2bn and £3bn. Those projections come from a report by the London Development Agency, which it says cannot be published because it contains commercially sensitive material.
The mayor said today: "On the most pessimistic assumption, taking the worst year out of the last 10, we get £800 million, which would repay all the debts we've incurred.
"Taking the average of the last 20 years, we would get £3 billion.
"We've gone for something midway between and so I think we're being quite cautious."
The Department of Culture, Media and Sport flatly denied a potential funding shortfall, while remaining optimistic about the original projections.
"There is no black hole," a DCMS spokesman said. "Historical evidence shows it is realistic to expect an increase [in property value] to achieve our goal of paying the lottery back."
He said the massive investment and regeneration in the area due to the Olympic games would boost the value of the property. But, he said, "No one can say how much land will be worth after the games. No one has a crystal ball."
That sentiment was mirrored by an LDA spokesman, who said the £1bn shortfall is a worst-case scenario.
"And I must stress it is only a scenario, it is not a prediction," the LDA spokesman said. "No one is able to predict what land values will be in 20 years' time, so we have to work on conservative estimates."
But the largest distributor of lottery monies, the Big Lottery Fund (BIG), says it will start to feel the crunch much sooner than 2012, when the Olympics will come to London. Of the £1bn diverted from the lottery to pay for the Olympics, two-thirds came from the BIG budget, which largely funds the voluntary and communities sector. Programmes currently funded by the distributor run until 2009, and won't be affected. But future funding from 2009 and 2010 will be reduced to 60-70% of current levels.
"It was a substantial diversion," said a BIG spokeswoman. "We took the major part of the hit."
Last year, in England alone, BIG received requests for £8.3bn in funding from 30,000 third-sector organisations and charities. As such, it can only fund one in 13 applicants. That level will go down in 2010 because of the money diverted to fund the Olympics.
The National Council for Voluntary Organisation said today that when it came to raiding the lottery funding coffers, enough was enough. A spokesman said: "We can't be in the position where the government is coming back to the lottery to look for increased funds for the games."
Other sectors funded by the lottery that could lose out from a thin return on Olympic Park property include the arts, heritage and sport.
The DCMS spokesman said that the arts sector - which had been vocal in its protests against using lottery money for the games - would ultimately profit from the Olympics.
"The arts should benefit from the global interest generated by the 2012 Olympic," the spokesman said. He said the cultural Olympiad, which lasts from when Britain receives the torch from Beijing until the games begin, will feature many festivals which will benefit the arts.
MPs are scheduled to vote this afternoon on whether or not to give more money to fund the games.

Footnote by me: It's worth pointing out that at least one of yesterday's newspapers carried the story that property prices were now falling at a rate almost equivalent to that of 20 years ago. While I agree that overall property has increased in price, it is worth pointing out the number of people who were then caught with "negative equity".

London Newspapers

2008-01-09T05:54:00.000-08:00

Comments from today's London evening papers:

London commuters could be hit by new fare increases to pay for the policing of the transport network during the 2012 Olympics.
Services could also be cut if the Department for Transport fails to cover the £27million cost of ensuring passenger safety during the Games.
Ministers insist that negotiations about funding are continuing but sources say that police and transport companies are becoming increasingly concerned that passengers could be forced to pay some or all of the bill.
Londoners are already facing higher council tax bills to pay for the Games as well as rising costs for Tube and train travel.
British Transport Police have submitted a funding bid to cover the cost of extra officers and vehicles to cope with the thousands of additional passengers using the transport system during the Olympics.
These will be used to prevent overcrowding at key stations and tackle incidents such as vandalism that could cause delays as well as to protect against possible terrorist attacks.
A source close to the negotiations said: "We are arguing that this is a special event and it should be paid for by a one-off Government grant but the signs coming out of the Department for Transport are not entirely positive.
"If the money doesn't come from the Government, then the rail operators will have to carry the cost and that means that passengers will ultimately pay. There is a lot of concern and strong views are being expressed about this privately."
Concern about the Government's attitude to meeting the costs have already been raised in the House of Lords by Lord Imbert, a former Met commissioner.
He told peers: "Transport security is a critical element in the preparation for the Olympic Games and therefore any further failure or delay in clarifying the funding provision will add unnecessary risk to the Games and their preparation, particularly at a time like this when the threat level is severe."
Labour peer Lord Rosser also urged the Government to foot the bill. The budget set by the police is intended to cover their expenditure from April this year until December 2012, months after the Games.
Under normal arrangements, British Transport Police revenue expenditure, which covers staffing and other day-today costs, is paid for by the rail companies and London Underground.
Up to 240,000 people an hour are expected to use the transport system during the peak Olympic periods and up to 1,000 police officers will be needed to marshal the crowds and keep the network operating safely.
The Department for Transport said it was unable to give any assurance that passengers would not be required to foot the security bill but added that no decision had been taken.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------£32m to be spent sprucing up shabby streets for 2012 visitors
Key parts of London are to get a multimillion-pound facelift in the run up to the Olympics.
Organisers have set aside £32 million to spruce up the main routes to the Olympic Park and other venues for the 2012 Games.
The scheme, called the Look of London, will mean shabby streets around the Stratford site are smartened up, with benches restored and painted, graffiti removed and chewing gum blasted away.
Other measures being planned include re-painting red phone boxes, decorative planting and hanging 2012 banners.
A Government spokesman said it wants the city to look "fabulous" for the Games. However, there are no details on exactly where the money will be spent or how it will be allocated.
In a parliamentary answer, Olympics minister Tessa Jowell said: "The purpose of this budget is to help improve the look of streets en route to the Olympic Park and off-park Olympic venues by assisting with street cleaning and dressing measures.
"The responsibility for allocation of these funds will be determined nearer the time of the Games."
The Conservatives questioned whether the money, which comes from the Olympic budget and will be overseen by Ms Jowell, would be better spent on promoting tourism.
Shadow culture, media and sport secretary Hugh Robertson said £32 million was "an awful, awful lot of money" for the things mentioned by Ms Jowell.
He added: "We need to establish exactly what Look of London is and who is on it. It would have been easier to give the money to Visit London which is already there to promote the city."
Mr Robertson pointed out that Visit Britain's budget was being cut from £49 million a year to £40 million a year between now and 2011.
"The irony is that £32 million is being put in Look of London's budget at exactly the same time as the Government has cut the tourism budget," he said. "The one thing we do know from the past three or four Games is they have all boosted tourism."
A spokesman for Visit Britain said it would not comment on Look of London but said the Games had the potential to unlock a £2billion benefit for the tourism industry if there was investment from the Government.
"This money doesn't grow on trees, we have to work for it," he added.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport said the money was included in the £9.3billion budget for the Olympics.
She denied the money would be better spent on promoting tourism.
"Visit Britain will have its programme not just for London but Britain and will be announcing its Olympic plans for attracting tourists," she added.

Beware the Athens effect!

2007-12-29T04:42:00.000-08:00

From, of all things, the This is Dorset website today

BEWARE the fate of Athens 2004 - that's the warning Weymouth and Portland Olympics chiefs are being urged to take heed of.
A leading tourism lobbyist says Britain shouldn't rest on its 2012 Olympics laurels and assume the games will bring a large influx of visitors.
Regular tourists stayed away from Greece when Athens hosted the 2004 event because of fears of overcrowding and overpricing, Tourism Alliance policy director Kurt Janson said.
Greece's total tourism dropped by 15 per cent in 2004 as a result, he added.
Mr Janson warned the borough might struggle to attract regular visitors in 2012 who have little interest in sailing events.
He said: "If you are already a successful tourism destination there is a risk that your usual tourism flow will be disrupted by hosting the Olympics."
Mr Janson, writing in the industry journal Tourism, said UK Olympic hosting sites could avoid the fate of Athens by encouraging additional tourists without discouraging regular visitors.
This can be achieved by government and tourism industry experts working together to resolve long-standing tourism issues and create a targeted tourism strategy.
Weymouth and Portland can learn from the examples of successful Olympics like Barcelona (1992 Olympics) and Seoul (1988) where the Games left an enduring tourism legacy, Mr Janson said.
In Dorset, a Welcoming Our World (WOW) fund has been launched to raise the quality of the visitor experience in the county.
The fund, started up with a £400,000 grant, will go towards showcasing everything Dorset has to offer tourists.
Dorset 2012 legacy manager Gary Fooks said: "We want the wow factor, and people to realise that we have an absolutely fantastic county in terms of culture, arts, sport, natural beauty."
Coun Howard Legg, the borough council spokesman for corporate affairs and special projects, said the Olympic Games will open the area to an international tourism market it has never had access to before.
He added: "We intend to ensure that the long-term benefits of this will far outstrip any possible disruption to the regular market over the two-week period of the main sailing events themselves.
"The economic benefits of Weymouth and Portland's increased profile are already stacking up: an additional £400 million of external investment in the borough is already planned in the next four years.
"We are planning to take advantage of the Olympic sailing events as much as we are able and to mitigate against the few downside risks they may also bring with them."
But not everyone in Weymouth and Portland will be bewaring the fate of Athens. Local sailor Sarah Ayton will be hoping for a repeat performance of the Greek games, where she won gold in the Yngling class with team-mates Sarah Webb and Shirley Robertson.

20% chance of running over Budget?

2007-12-10T10:32:00.000-08:00

OK, so today the government announced that there was a 20% chance that the cost of the Games would overrun Budget. Thank you Ms Jowell - let's be fair what Budget we are talking about - I enclose a copy of the one currently in use - please note the omittance of legacy costs and inflation amongst other things. Also note that this includes £2 billion (more than 25% of the stated costs) while the "extra" £1 billion of this fund has been ingnored. Perhaps that will quietly be expended (did I hear the words "slush fund"?).

I'll give odds of 3 to 1 that the Budget will over-run - if the government has the honesty to declare all the expenses involved in preparing the ground, constructing the venues and then ensuring that the items constructed are made available to the public after the Games are over.

As a retired accountant I would have been in serious trouble in my working life if, in preparing a budget, I announced that I would require a contingency fund of 25% and that it would probably be used - without explaining how and why it would be required. Is this the level of accuracy that Gordon Brown used to prepare his Annual Budget for the UK when he was Chancellor?

Cost Overrun?

2007-12-04T10:28:00.000-08:00

Interesting to hear Seb Coe today say that the project is running to plan - or even slightly ahead. This carefully covered the fact that there is a fund to cover cost overruns - that is, in simple terms, errors made resulting in an underestimate of the costs. The amount set aside for this is £3 billion - and it was also announced today that all of this fund will be used. There are still five years to go, and much construction yet to undertaken. So how do we know that this £3 billion is the "bottom line"? And is the amount of this fund included in the overall budget? If not, the costs will clear £15 billion - and then the next target will be £20 billion....

Hold on to your hats - it's going to be a rough ride!

Is time running out for the Olympic legacy?

2007-11-18T03:47:00.000-08:00

Is this further evidence of the lack of planning in the development of the 2102 Olympic Games site? From BBC News today:

In areas of east London destined to benefit from the legacy of the 2012 Olympic games there are concerns that time is running out for the regeneration plans to be finalised if they are to yield the hoped-for benefits.

When London bid for the 2012 Olympic Games the organisers promised the event wouldn't just bring the greatest sporting show on earth to the capital.

They also pledged it would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to regenerate one of the poorest parts of the city - the East End.

The five London boroughs hosting the Games want, and need, help. In Tower Hamlets, for instance, unemployment is double the national average. There is also a lot of pressure on housing.

In Hackney, some youth workers have expressed increasing worries about violence on the streets.

Paul Unsworth from Frampton Road Baptist Church Youth Club says many teenagers just do not feel safe any more.

"Young people in this area feel very threatened if they move outside of their own area and out of their own estate because there's different gangs that are around in different areas."

The government has put aside £1.7bn for regeneration in the East End. New jobs, new homes, better transport and better sporting facilities are among the promises. But some experts are warning there is not enough detail in the plans.

For instance, the plans allow for the creation of 9,000 new homes. Of these, 50% are to be at affordable prices. But it has still not been decided where these homes are going or how many in which boroughs.

And that could mean the chance to change the area is ultimately lost, according to Dr Iain McRury who wrote a report on regeneration for the London Assembly.

"There's a crucial window of opportunity in the next six months to a year when those final parts of the plan upon which good legacy depends will be decided and delivered upon.

"We need to see those final little details like the type of housing, the kind of green space, the type of leisure facilities."

Alison Nimmo, the director of regeneration for the Olympic Delivery Authority, says the Games organisers are trying to take on board what local people want.

"We've worked very hard out on the street in east London talking to people, particularly young people, about what their priorities are and we've had a tremendous response and that's really been embedded in a lot of our plans."

But the consultation process is complicated by the sheer number of people, organisations and authorities affected by the Olympics development. And many feel the plans are still quite generic.

Some groups even say that, rather than benefiting from the Games, they are actually losing out.
Johnny Walker from the Hackney and Leyton Sunday League says his teams will lose about 11 of their pitches on Hackney Marshes as car parks are built for the Games.

He is worried that poorer facilities will create more problems for an amateur sport which is already struggling.

"I think it's affecting us at a very bad time when grassroots football is under a lot of pressure and it's not surviving very well. There's lots of football leagues going to the wall, especially Sunday morning leagues and I'm worried we'll be put in danger."

There are still five years to go until the Games, and organisers stress that the East End will benefit from 30 years-worth of regeneration between now and 2012.

But Dr Iain McRury says time is running out if the East End is going to change for the better.
"The people of east London have learned not to get their hopes up too high because sometimes big projects deliver, sometimes they don't and we're hoping that the Olympics doesn't fail because if it does fail it will be failing the people of east London."

Stadium - further notes

2007-11-10T07:33:00.000-08:00

Re the new stadium - the government have announced why the costs exceed the original estimate; this is because the estimate did not allow for VAT, inflation, legacy costs and earthworks. Please remember that the government is responsible for our annual Budget - I wonder how those estimates are arrived....

New stadium

2007-11-09T11:07:00.000-08:00

OK, now the new stadium design has been published. I've waited a couple of days to see what the others say. First my comments:

After all this time, the final design for the main Olympic stadium is that submitted by - wait for it - an Australian architect. It's not as if we don't have brilliant architects in the UK - their work has been exported throughout the world. The stunning Milau viaduct in France was designed by a British architect (Norman Foster); people travel there just to see the highest and longest cable suspension bridge in the world which leaps across the valley of the River Tarn. And what about the amazing work of the Heatherwick Studio (http://www.heatherwick.com)?Not only that but the price tag of £496 million is a massive increase on the originally projected £280 million - though, to be fair, the increase in cost is not (as yet!) as much as the increase in the overall cost of the Games. And there yet has to be a decision as to the use of the stadium when the Games finish - no doubt all will be revelaed in due course. However, just read what the UK papers say about the costs and the design:

The Daily Telegraph
The final cost for the main London 2012 Olympic Stadium could be higher than the £496 million price tag revealed last month, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

Olympic Delivery Authority chairman John Armitt told members of the London Assembly on Oct 10 that they had agreed the figure with main contractors Robert McAlpine for the 80,000-seater stadium, the designs for which will be unveiled today.

But it is understood that the figure Armitt gave to the London Assembly was a forecast and is only 80 per cent certain of being the final cost for the stadium. The final bill will only be known once the work is complete a year before the London Games open.

A spokesman for the ODA said, however: "We are confident about the stadium budget announced. It contains provision for inflation, VAT and conversion down to legacy."
The fresh uncertainty over the cost of the stadium, which was originally priced at £280 million in London's bid document in 2005, comes as organisers prepare to show off for the first time plans for the innovative arena, which will provide the centrepiece for London's Olympics.
To create a long-term athletics legacy, builders will dig down to create a permanent 25,000-seater track-and-field arena which will remain after the Games have finished.

Temporary seating will then be erected on a platform around the perimeter of the main bowl to boost the capacity to 80,000 during the month of Olympic and Paralympic competition. The scaffolding will be covered by a 'wrap' of Olympic images.

After the Games, organisers hope to attract League One football team Leyton Orient to become the main anchor tenant and they have not yet given up hope of a Premiership rugby union club such as Saracens joining them.

Yesterday, the ODA's chief executive David Higgins confirmed work on the stadium would start three months early, in May 2008.

He said: "The quicker we start, the more time we have to ensure completion in an effective time to allow the test events to happen in 2011."

The Times on line:

It’s a bowl of blancmange was my first reaction when the latest designs for the 2012 Olympic stadium flashed up on the screen. The utter silence all around suggested that the audience was equally bemused.

The expressive, ballooning shapes of the early design have gone, replaced by a pixilated outer wall which will look exactly the same from every viewpoint, making it even more disorienting to walk round than the Millennium Dome.

What the architect Rod Sheard refers to as the stadium’s crown has all the interest of an elevated railway track. Where, oh where, is the sinuous swooping silhouette that wowed the world in Athens and will do so again in Beijing. There the engineers created sensationally athletic and muscular shapes that perfectly express and celebrate the greatest sporting event on earth.
Here the motive force behind the whole design is fear. Fear of adventure, fear of overspend and fear of leaving behind a white elephant. At the presentation the word legacy featured far more than the word sport. The main point of the brief was to ensure that an 80,000-seat stadium for the Olympics could be reduced to a 25,000-seater for community use and the occasional elite event.

Will Olympic stadium look worth £496m? Little thought has been given to the features that bring magic to the Olympics. When, with Athens in mind, I asked how the torch would be brought into the stadium I was greeted with a bemused smile and told this was a matter for the opening ceremony. But in Athens the drama of the torch descending into the stadium was a sensation, precisely because the staircase was the main focal point of the design. Here no opportunity has been taken to create memorable entrances and ascents.

True, practical elements appear to have been properly considered. There is a roof protecting two thirds of the spectators from rain but a large enough space for the centre to be filled with sunlight all day. There is shelter from the fierce winds that bedevil the Thames Estuary ensuring that the opportunity to break records will not be lost.

But the windswept area around the stadium in Stratford, East London, at present without any hint of cover, could be bitter and the hospitality pods look no more than coloured pebbles washed up from the beach. Tree planting is urgently needed for both shade and shelter.
One feature which needs a complete rethink is the stadium lighting, shown as 14 banks of rectangular lights like those around a football pitch. Athens demonstrated how night lighting could be a dazzling and constantly changing visual display. Stratford offers no more than glare.
The core of the problem is that the Olympic Board (Lord Coe honourably excepted) seems convinced, like those who gave us the Millennium Dome, that if they say the words “world-class building” often enough we will believe it and it will happen.

Ken Livingstone proclaimed: “This will be the best stadium ever constructed anywhere on the planet.” Forgive me, Ken, but I don’t think those who have been visitors to Athens and Beijing will agree.

A great building needs a great client and this project is urgently in need of someone who demands architecture and engineering with flair and character, and who is not dazzled by every latest computer image. The pixilated walls, it was pointed out, could show the patterns of the flags of every competing nation and shadowy images of famous photographs of great athletes in the past. Big deal. Or the stadium could be covered in fabric, which could be cut up and sold as bags after the Games. Don’t most people make their souvenirs before the event?

A flat-topped coloured glass bowl, surrounded by a web of steel knitting needles just will not do. The basics are there but the engineers, Buro Happold, who are among the best in the world, need to be told to produce a structure that has muscle and athleticism to it and doesn’t look the same from every angle, and looks a great deal more interesting by both day and night.

Lord Moynihan's broadside

2007-10-27T09:56:00.000-07:00

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."

A new way of financing the Games?

2007-10-20T00:41:00.001-07:00

The new Chancellor of the Exchequer has recently introduced a mini-budget. This included an increase in the charge for National Insurance; currently any person earning more than £34,840 a year pays a mere 1% national insurance a year - in the previous tax year this limit was £33,540. This limit has now been raised to £40,040 - and the tax rate on the differential is 11% - so the difference could cost as much as £520 in the forthcoming tax year - or 15% of the salary of a person earning £41,000 a year. The Daily Telegraph reports that, without this increase, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development this week rated Britain as one of the most heavily taxed countries in the world. More to come to pay for the Games??

I thought (and I know that successive governments, particularly the current encumbent, have proved me wrong) that the purpose of national insurance contributions (which in my youth was divivded between graduated pension and national insurance) was to pay for pensions and the national health service. Now it is just another tax, albeit a stealth tax. Again, in my youth, the costs for graduated pension and national insurance were a minimum part of deductions from pay packets; now I know from the wages that I have calculated for clients that the amounts are the equivalent to, or often more than the PAYE tax deductions...

Unbudgeted - £1 million a week

2007-10-19T10:09:00.000-07:00

From today's Daily Mail:

Fresh figures revealing the true cost of the 2012 London Olympics won’t impress taxpayers, but will hurt less if you’re one of the event’s self-employed consultants. In a parliamentary answer, the government said The Olympic Delivery Authority is currently paying £1million a week to temporary, interim or contract professionals.
Bosses at the ODA spent £50.5m in the last financial year, while a further £10.7m was paid out on contracts within the first three months of 2007.
The figures fly in the face of assurances given by Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell, who recently said only two contracts were agreed last year and none for this year.
They were uncovered by Tory MP Hugh Robertson, who has attacked the government for not factoring in the £60m spent so far on consultants into its budget.
He said: “The revelation that the ODA has spent over £60m on consultants already will raise very serious questions about the direction of the Olympic budget.
“Tessa Jowell has also failed to answer eight specific Parliamentary Questions about the budget. We need much greater clarity and honesty over exactly what is going on in order to restore confidence in London's Olympics.”
His comments come after figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show Olympic bosses paid 65 agency workers a massive £7,707,000 – about £118,500 each.
Coupled with the state’s admission that the budget for the event has leapt from £2.4bn to £9.3bn, these revelations help explain why 90% of Brits think the games will go over-budget.
Matthew Elliot of the Taxpayers Alliance, which commissioned the finding, said the costings of the London games make it a unique event in the event’s history.
“The 2012 Olympics are set to become the most expensive games in history,” he told The Daily Mail yesterday. “Once consultants are brought in, costs rocket.”
The ODA’s latest vacancies include a job as a transport press officer for the games, commanding a £40,000 salary. The London 2012 Organising Committee is also looking for a creative individual who can coordinate final ceremonies in Beijing as a Production Project Manager; for an undisclosed salary.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

2007-10-08T09:16:00.000-07:00

This must be the most stupid cost saving exercise of the Olympics!
The world-famous Red Arrows have been banned from appearing at the 2012 London Olympics because they are deemed "too British".
Organisers of the event say that the Arrows military background might be "offensive" to other countries taking part in the Games. The display team have performed at more than 4000 events worldwide, but the Department of Culture, Media and Sport have deemed the display team "too militaristically British". Red Arrows pilots were said to be "outraged", as they had hoped to put on a truly world class display for the Games, something which had never been seen before. Being axed from a British-based event for being "too British" is an insult - the Arrows are a symbol of Britain .The Red Arrows have been excellent ambassadors for British overseas trade, as they display their British-built Hawk aircraft all over the world.
The Arrows performed a short flypast in 2005 when the winning bid was announced, but their flypast at the Games was to have been truly spectacular.
It is to be hoped that common sense prevailsIf you disagree with this decision, sign the petition on the link http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/RedArrows2012/?ref+redArrows2012

Since posting this I have heard from the official Red Arrows website that the announcement is not true - in fact, the timetable for the Red Arrows is only organised a year in advance. HOWEVER - if you want the Red Arrows at the 2012 Olympics please sign the petition; they are British - and if the PC Brigade want to ensure that everything is maintained in accordance with their wishes I wouldn't be surprised if they don't allow a Brit to win any event, as they are the hosts for the Games, which gives them an unfair advantage.

Only one contractor - and the cost doubles!

2007-10-06T00:52:00.000-07:00

Forget the "flat pack" Games - it is now the time of the "back of a fag packet" Games - for that is almost certainly where the costing was initially computed. And please note that I do not have official permission to use the words "Olympic", "2012", etc - which have got a certain Mr Ronsson into trouble recently in publishing his childrens' book. I shall await the arrival of the Thought Police at my front door shortly...

Cost of Olympic stadium and swim centre doubles
by Ross Lydall and Matthew Beard, Evening Standard

The bill for the aquatics centre is set to double to £150 million while the budget for the stadium will rise from £280million to £500 million.

Balfour Beatty is the only remaining bidder to build the aquatics centre after two shortlisted rivals withdrew.

German firm Hochtief said it had too much other work while French company Eiffel was unhappy with a tough bidding system designed to avoid a repeat of the fiasco over the rising cost of Wembley Stadium. Balfour Beatty, a shareholder in doomed Tube maintenance firm Metronet, recently posted half-year losses of £52 million.

The Olympics Delivery Authority has been forced to admit it has no realistic hope of keeping to the £75 million cost in London's official bid book, as a result of inflation, VAT and the fact the budget was set at 2004 rather than 2012 prices.

Similar pressures have driven the main stadium's cost to £500million. It also has only one contractor lined up - Team McAlpine, the consortium responsible for Arsenal's Emirates stadium - after others failed to meet the bid criteria.

Some £9.3 billion of public and Lottery cash has been earmarked for 2012.

Next week the ODA's new chairman, John Armitt, makes his first public appearance before the London Assembly.

Lib-Dem culture spokeswoman Dee Doocey said: "This is yet more evidence to show that the original estimates were made on the back of a fag packet. I look forward to quizzing John Armitt."

The aquatics centre, which should have been completed next year, is now set to open for test events in 2011. It will include two 50m pools and a diving pool.

It will also host synchronised swimming, water polo and elements of the modern pentathlon during the Olympics.

The ODA is said to be relaxed over Balfour Beatty being the only bidder in spite of the "challenging timetable".

Howard Shiplee, its director of construction, said: "We remain confident we will appoint a world class construction company."

He added: "A huge amount of work is already taking place"

From the BBC's website: No legal action on 'Olympic' book

Mr Ronsson said he was "very surprised" by the request that a children's book with the word "Olympic" in its title has been published despite legal threats from organisers of London's 2012 games. Donovan Twins: Olympic Mind Games, by Robert Ronsson, from Bewdley, Worcs, tells of alien contact in 2012.

Olympic organisers asked Mr Ronsson to remove "Olympic" from the title as it was not an officially licensed item.

A London 2012 spokesman said it was "disappointing" it was published and hoped a solution could be reached.

Under the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006 organisers have trademark rights over words such as "Olympic", "London 2012" and "2012".

'Protect sponsors'

The London 2012 spokesman said: "We have to protect the rights of our sponsors, who pay us considerable amounts of money to have exclusive rights to an association with the Olympic brand."

Despite receiving warnings of legal action, publisher Pen Press printed 300 copies of the book.
Mr Ronsson told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he was "very surprised" by the Olympic organisers' request.

"It's extraordinarily strange that London 2012 can do this," he said.

'Not heavy-handed'

After the book's publication Olympic organisers said they would take "a balanced view" of the case.

"In the circumstances, particularly given the small number of books published, it would be disproportionate to take a heavy-handed approach," the London 2012 spokesman said.

"We will now contact Mr Ronsson again to discuss our ongoing concerns and endeavour to reach an amicable solution."

Shocking ‘cost’ to Wales of London hosting Olympics Oct 6 2007 by Martin Shipton, Western Mail
Claims 2012 Games will leech a whopping £437m from our coffers

WALES is to be robbed of a staggering £437m to ensure the success of the London Olympics, Plaid Cymru claimed last night.

Plaid economics spokesman Adam Price said it was “an absolute disgrace” that Wales, the poorest part of the UK, would effectively be funding a massive regeneration project in London, officially the richest city in Europe.

Mr Price, the MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, confidently predicted that the Westminster Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review – due to be published on Tuesday – will count all the money identified for the 2012 Olympic Games as a “UK spend” rather than as an “English” spend.

The significance of designating the Olympics as a UK project, rather than an English one, is that the National Assembly will not be entitled to any extra funding under the Barnett Formula, which determines how much money is allocated by the Treasury to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Mr Price said, “The UK Government has plans to spend £5.63bn on the Olympic Games. The biggest element is on transport and economic regeneration of the part of east London where the Games will take place.

“In other circumstances, there would be no question of this being seen as anything but an English project, and that would mean there would be a ‘Barnett consequential’ – in other words, more money for Wales in line with the Barnett Formula. In this case, the extra funding for Wales would amount to £327m, which the Assembly Government would have available to spend on hospitals, schools and all the other devolved responsibilities.

“On top of this, Wales will also be losing out on £110m of funding from the Lottery Fund, because of the UK Government’s smash-and- grab raid to scoop up for the Olympics money that would otherwise go to good causes elsewhere in Britain.

“Under the geographical formula used by the Lottery Fund – which ironically is based on need, unlike the Barnett Formula – Wales would be entitled to 6.5% of the money being redirected to the Olympics. In cash terms that is £110m.”

Mr Price said the “double whammy”, amounting to a loss of £437m to Wales, was “a wholesale scandal”.

He added, “It is completely unprecedented for what is clearly a transport and regeneration project designed to benefit London to be classified as a ‘UK spend’. What the Westminster Government is doing is giving the project an Olympics branding in order to justify this.
“By doing so, they are robbing people living in the poorest part of the UK, to fund a major transport and regeneration scheme in London, which is officially the richest city in Europe. The fact is that London has twice the GDP [Gross Domestic Product] per head of West Wales and the Valleys, the region covering two thirds of Wales that has qualified for two rounds of the highest level of European aid.

“So the poorest are being forced to pay up to help out the richest. £437m is a huge amount of money, and by depriving Wales of it, the UK Government is undermining the whole point of the EU Convergence Fund aid project.

“We are already expecting a very tight CSR. A decision like this is going to make matters far worse.”

Nick Bourne, leader of the Welsh Conservative group at the National Assembly, said, “I do think that Wales will benefit from the London Olympics – it’s not all about regenerating East London. But I certainly think there will be questions to ask if it turns out that all the expenditure is to be regarded as a UK item and that none of it will be ‘Barnettised’.”

The Government-backed Olympic Delivery Authority has sought to give the impression that the Games will bring benefits to the whole of the UK.

But it is clear that London won the contest to stage the Games largely by stressing that the Games would be used to regenerate part of east London.

In a revealing speech made last November, ODA chief executive David Higgins stressed the significance of the regeneration project, stating, “There is no doubt that London 2012 will be the greatest sporting event in the world, but London 2012 can also be remembered as the ‘Regeneration Games’ and contribute to the economic and social renaissance of parts of the Lower Lea Valley that suffer from unacceptable levels of deprivation and urban decay.

“It is the value of the Games as a catalyst for addressing the existing economic and social problems in parts of east London that should be part of the current debate.

“After the Games, the area will enjoy the largest new urban park in Europe for 150 years with an enhanced network of restored waterways and new wildlife habitat.

“It is estimated that the Games will create 7,000 full-time equivalent jobs in the construction industry alone. This excludes the Stratford City development which could easily double this number.

“In addition, approximately 12,000 jobs could be created as a result of the legacy development of the Olympic Park area – contributing to the 249,000 jobs that are planned for east London in the period to 2016.”

The UK Government never comments on funding matters involving the Comprehensive Spending Review before its publication.

An Assembly Government spokeswoman would only say, “It would not be sensible to speculate on figures at this stage.”

Temporary pay

2007-09-18T03:19:00.000-07:00

According to today's Daily Mail Olympic bosses are paying temporary staff up to £1,200 a day. With the cost of the Games spiralling upwards, the Olympic Delivery Authority has spent £7,707,000 on all of 65 agency workers - an average of around £118,500 each. Most of this was spent on consultants and recruitment experts, drafted in during the authority's "start-up phase". The biggest beneficiary was the Central London based recruitment agency, Rockpools, which earned £1,885,898, which claims on its website that they brought in Jack Lemley (see below) as chairman - he quit after a few months, saying he had become frustrated by political interference and the high cost of the Games.
Reed Personnel Services were paid £525,939 while Hedra, a "management consulting, solutions and serving company" received £491,885. The singe highest amount paid to an unidentified temporary worker was £1,200 a day.
Initially concern was expressed over the costs of the games which leapt from £2.4billion to £9.3billion, with taxpayers and the National Lottery footing the extra costs, but now the salaries and fees paid to those organising the event are attracting more attention.
Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Taxpayers Alliance, said "When London bid for the 2012 Olympics, we were told it was a golden opportunity to showcase the Capital and encourage sport. Now we've got the Games, it seems to be a tawdry money-making opportunity for a few fat cats at the taxpayers expense. No wonder people are so disillusioned."
Organisers claimed last night that the salaries were justified in order to get the huge project off the ground. The Delivery Authority said that the money had been spent assuring that all groups in East London, where the Olympic Park will be situated, are represented when job recruitment takes place. This apparently includes the several reports so far produced, including a 48 page report on Equality and Diversity Strategy, 36 pages on a Gender Equality Scheme, and a 38 page Race Equality Scheme.
A spokesman for the Department if Culture, Media and Sport said: "The ODA has met all its major milestones and saved hundreds of millions of pounds through a review of its costs last year."
Last week the Channel 4 Dispatches programme revealed that the organising committee's chief executive Paul Deighton - who commissioned the widely-derided 2012 logo - received £536,000 last year, including a £100,000 performance related bonus.
A retired City financier, Mr Deighton's personal fortune is estimated to be £100 million.
Why, with all these committees, authorities, government departments and needless reports do I start to think of 1984 - or maybe it should be Animal Farm...

Which side are you on?

2007-09-14T01:01:00.000-07:00

Just what should you believe....

The government has defended the costs of the 2012 Olympics after a poll found that public support for the games has fallen in recent years.
According to a YouGov poll for the Taxpayers' Alliance, almost two-thirds of people are concerned over the cost of the games.
Just 28 per cent of people thought the financial risk was worth taking - down from 62 per cent five years ago, when costs were estimated at £1.8bn.
Some 44 per cent would like to see the money spent on public services such as schools and hospitals - up from 18 per cent in 2002 - and 20 per cent would prefer lower taxes.
The survey published on Tuesday found that most people (89 per cent) did not believe that the games would be delivered within the government's £9.35bn budget.
Almost half expected the total costs to be 60 per cent more than the current budget at £15bn, with a quarter estimating that it could rise by 114 per cent to £20bn.
Matthew Elliott, the chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "This is the first concrete evidence that the British public has fallen out of love with the 2012 Olympics.
"It is beginning to look like people in charge lack the management experience and expertise to deliver the Games on budget. With costs spiralling, the public now believe the risk is not worth taking."
However, a spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said it was "just wrong to present the cost of the Games as being £9.35 billion without acknowledging the very considerable amount of regeneration in London that this will also be paying for".
He pointed to the "very big contingency to cover any over-spend on individual aspects of the project".
"If those questioned had been given a fair picture of the real benefits 2012 will bring we are confident they would have been as positive as in all previous polls," the spokesman added.
"We regret that the TaxPayers' Alliance have made ill-informed criticisms of the teams delivering the Games.
"They have wide experience of major building projects and staging high profile events and their work has been praised by the International Olympic Committee."

No Smoke without Fire

2007-09-13T10:39:00.000-07:00

From Guardian Unlimited 12 September 2007:

London 2012 is to take no action against Channel 4 following Monday night's Dispatches programme, which made a number of allegations about the handling of the Olympic budget and Lord Coe's personal financial arrangements. Insiders believe the programme failed to land a killer punch on Coe in relation to his business dealings, though questions may not have been so easily deflected had he gone through with plans to publicly float one of his companies earlier this year. The programme revealed that in 2005 Coe signed over his non-Olympic earnings for 40 years to an investment vehicle of which he is both the majority shareholder and the primary asset. Subsequently around £1m in outside investment was raised for the remaining shares in Complete Leisure Holdings. As recently as July the CLG executive director, Harold Tillman, said the company would soon be floated, a move that could have netted Coe a multimillion-pound profit. Perhaps wisely that plan appears to have been ditched.

Wish I had cashed in on this deal...

Tomorrow's News

2007-09-09T02:08:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow Channel 4 will publish some damning comments on the cost of the 2012 Olympics - here are what the papers are saying:

The Telegraph

The Government is facing a new Olympic storm over accusations about the true cost of the London 2012 games. A Channel Four Dispatches programme, to be screened on Monday night, will allege that the Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell knew that the original £2.375 billion budget for the games was possibly underestimated by "several billion" 16 months before she admitted costs had spiralled to £9.3 billion.

The programme also claims that research by a leading academic, carried out long before July 2005 when London won the right to host the event, showed that while the economic benefits to the capital would be worth around £6 billion, the rest of the country would suffer a £4 billion economic deficit.

Dispatches will claim the research was buried by the Government.

Although the Government disputes the new allegations, the Channel Four investigation is certain to raise fresh questions over the way the budget for the games was handled and whether the public was always kept fully informed about the true cost of the project. The programme's central allegation is that the Government was being warned by the consultants KPMG shortly after London was awarded the games, that the bill for staging the event would rise by at least a third.

It was not until March 2007 that Miss Jowell announced that the budget had increased to £9.3 billion, a figure which included £2.7 billion of regeneration costs, an £836 million VAT bill and £600 million for security.

Dispatches will also claim that the Government buried research carried out in October 2004 which showed that, while London's economy would receive a £6 billion boost, the regions would be hit by a £4 billion economic deficit in 2012, along with 31,000 job losses.

The programme alleges it was not until December 2005 that the research was partly published in the form of a press release which claimed the economic benefits of the games would be £2 billion.

Last night a spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, said: "We dispute vigorously the claims made by Dispatches. The Government has been open and transparent about the cost of the Olympics."
(Oh yeah??)

The Times in brief:

The salary bill for the bodies overseeing the London 2012 Olympics has already topped £3 million, it has been claimed. The London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games paid out £1 million in salaries, while the Olympic Delivery Authority paid our more than £2 million, according to a Channel 4 Dispatches programme to be screened on Monday.

The Gravy Train Rumbles On - is £10 billion easily in sight?

2007-09-09T00:33:00.000-07:00

On the day that a newspaper reports in the UK that Lord Coe made £200,000 in the first two months after London wins the 2012 Olympic bid, the Mail on Sunday reported:

Princess Anne is being paid £400 an hour to attend planning meetings for the 2012 London Olympics.

The payments - which come against the backdrop of a spiralling bill for the Games - were last night condemned by critics of the growing Olympics gravy train.

Documents filed by the Games' organising committee, chaired by Lord Coe, show that during the past year the Princess Royal was paid £4,000 to attend four board meetings lasting an average of just two-and-a-half hours each.

The accounts for 2006-07, seen by The Mail on Sunday, also reveal that former Olympic triple- jumper Jonathan Edwards received more than £100,000 for attending board meetings and carrying out consultancy work, while chief executive Paul Deighton - who has an es t imated £110million personal fortune - drew a salary and bonus totalling £536,000.

Critics have warned that escalating budgets and salaries have left the Games in danger of becoming an exercise in selfenrichment for companies and individuals - and a bloated strain on the taxpayer.

The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) has a £2 billion budget, with a third of its money coming from the International Olympic Committee and the rest from sponsors, ticket sales and merchandising.

A separate body, the Olympic Delivery Authority, which is in charge of the construction work, is expected to run up an additional bill of £10billion.

The vast majority of the ODA's escalating cost, which is four times the Government's original estimate, will be picked up by taxpayers.

Princess Anne, who is a member of the International Olympic Committee and represented Britain in the equestrian three-day event at the Montreal Olympics in 1976, is a non-executive director of the organising committee.

She received the £4,000 for ten hours of meetings.

The most recent estimate of her fortune is around £21million.

Since 1993, the Queen has reimbursed the Treasury for the £228,000 income Anne receives from the Civil List.

The money comes from the Queen's own income, which includes an £8.1million Civil List payment from the Government.

The rest of Anne's wealth comes from her estate, Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire, her jewellery and a trust fund.

Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker said the payments raised broader questions about the way the Royal Family will earn its income in the future.

"It seems to me that they have a choice," he said. "Either the Royals can be self-financing by undertaking ordinary jobs like this, which I'd prefer, or they continue to live off the Civil List money.

"They can't have their Royal cake and eat it."

Labour MP Ian Davidson, who is on the Commons Public Accounts Committee and has investigated the Royals' use of taxpayers' money, said: "Presumably the Games committee feels it is getting value for money from her.

"If it means she is becoming a working Royal, and will no longer receive a subsidy, then I am all in favour of it."

A spokeswoman for Princess Anne said: "The Princess Royal has received a fee, in common with other directors of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games.

"What the Princess does with the payment is a private matter, but you should be aware that the Princess makes considerable donations to charity every year from a number of sources of income."

Jonathan Edwards, who retired from triple jumping in 2003 as Great Britain's most successful medalwinning athlete, received £14,500 last year for attending board meetings and a further £87,000 for consultancy services.

In the year to the end of March 2007, the organisers paid out a total of £8.2million in wages and salaries for its 102 employees - amounting to an average salary of £80,917 each.

Lord Coe took a salary of £285,000.

The organisers' accounts also show the generous salary package awarded to chief executive Paul Deighton, 50, who amassed his £110 million fortune as an investment banker.

Mr Deighton, a former chief executive in Europe for Goldman Sachs, says his package - £436,000 in salary and a £100,000 performance bonus --represents a "massive pay cut".
Last night, a spokeswoman for the organisers said: "LOCOG is a privately financed company.
"Our £2billion budget is raised privately and is separate from the ODA's publicly-funded budget.

"Board members receive £1,000 for attending each meeting. Princess Anne attended four meetings and so was paid £4,000.

"Meetings tend to last around two-and-a-half hours, but can be longer.

"Jonathan Edwards received £1,000 for each board meeting he attended.

"The £87,000 of consultancy services and expenses is for a wide range of sports strategy consultancy services and for chairing our Sports Advisory Group.

"Jonathan works for LOCOG for at least 50 days per year and charges us considerably less than his usual market rate for similar work."

In 2003, when it decided to pitch for the Games, the Government put the estimate at just £2.3billion.

But in July, Edward Leigh, chairman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, warned that "significant uncertainty" over costs could take the Government's later estimate of £9.3 billion for the budget for the Olympic Delivery Authority past £10billion.

The money includes millions of pounds being spent hiring a team of at least ten "equality and inclusion" managers, on salaries of more than £100,000 each, plus bonuses, to ensure that all the construction firms involved with the 2012 Games employ enough ethnic minority and female builders.

The Public Accounts Committee warned that the contribution from the private sector towards the overrunning budget was expected to fall short of the expected £738million. "The truth is that the Government is financially exposed," Mr Leigh said.

What the others are saying

2007-09-01T00:41:00.000-07:00

OK, sorry - I've been in and out of hospital for a while, and not feeling too great, but here's what the others have been saying about the cost of the Olympics:

Financial Times 20th July 2007
The £9.3bn London Olympics budget contains “significant areas of uncertainty” that could drive costs up, unless effective controls are exercised, the government’s spending watchdog will warn on Friday.
The government’s dramatic increase this spring in the budget for the 2012 games, almost tripling the £3.3bn cost to the taxpayer estimated at the time of winning 2005 bid, has put the event on a “firmer financial footing”, says a report by the National Audit Office.
But Sir John Bourn, head of the NAO, warned the government it still had to “work to contain funding and achieve value for money”. He highlighted areas of uncertainty affecting costs, including the design specifications and future use of the Olympic venues, the level of price inflation in the construction sector and the contracts negotiated by suppliers.
This high level of uncertainty explains why Gordon Brown insisted the revised budget included a £2.2bn contingency fund – excluded from the original bid. The prime minister is determined to try to reduce the risk of cost overruns and the accompanying damaging headlines.
The political imperative for keeping the 2012 event within budget stretches beyond the implications for the public finances. Mr Brown does not want the government’s reputation for competence damaged by any further cost overruns. Labour is acutely aware the event could coincide with the next-but-one general election.

The Scotsman 7 August 2007
SIX English theatre companies have given up appearances at the Fringe this year because of funding uncertainty blamed on the 2012 Olympics, a top venue director said yesterday.
Director of Finance online (Visual Sciences) 31 August 2007
In connection with the shortly to start Underground workers strike:The unions have made clear that the 2012 Olympics could become a transport nightmare if their demands are not met.

Builder & Engineer online 9 August 2007
(Guardian Unlimited made the same claim the previous day)
UK Construction costs will soar by almost £4bn as a result of the 2012 London Olympics the Taxpayers’ Alliance has warned. According to analysts, the huge demand for construction will have knock-on effects in the wider construction industry, pushing up inflation by 1 to 1.5 per cent each year until the 2012 Olympics have been held.

The Telegraph 16 August 2007
It was one of the key promises which convinced members of the International Olympic Committee to back London during the city's dramatic victory in the battle to host the 2012 Olympics.
Ken Livingstone: the London Mayor rejected West Ham's proposals However, two years on, there are serious concerns among British athletics chiefs that the plans to turn the main Olympic Stadium into an international flagship venue for track and field after 2012 are being watered down.
Although the final designs and legacy plans for the £500 million stadium are not due to be signed off until the autumn, a new report by management consultants PMP proposes a multi-use facility which would only be available for athletics for a third of the year.
In addition there are no plans at present to re-house the warm-up track to be built alongside the Olympic Stadium after the Games, making it impossible for London to bid for the World Athletics Championships.
The doubts over the athletics legacy will not only alarm IOC members who voted for London, but anger West Ham's owners who had a £100 million offer to convert the stadium into a multi-use facility rejected by Olympic organisers in February.

Financial Times 13 August 2007
Rising construction costs could hit large infrastructure schemes including the 2012 Olympics and Crossrail and proposed skyscrapers such as the Shard of Glass, according to new research.
Building costs in London have risen 14 per cent in two years and are set to rise another 14 per cent in the next two years, according to research by Davis Langdon, the construction consultancy.
This increase, which would be far above the rate of inflation, is expected to be higher for the capital, where many large projects are going ahead, than elsewhere in the UK.
The costs partly reflect the rising prices for materials, which shot up by 9.9 per cent in the last year. Despite last month’s dip in metal prices, reported yesterday, steel is 25 per cent more expensive than a year ago because of demand from China and India. Other materials have also become dearer; the price of imported timber is up 25 per cent on a year ago.
Another driver on project costs has been strong de-mand from the private and public sector, allowing contractors to pick and choose. “The industry has become much more of a sellers’ market, with contractors having more choice over the work they take on and more power to dictate contractual arrangements,” said Peter Fordham of Davis Langdon in a report.
There is also a lack of ex-perienced management in the field. Although the influx of labourers from east Europe has solved Britain’s previous shortage of manual workers, there are still intermittent problems. “The demand for manpower often means contract labour moves on in the middle of a job for better rates elsewhere,” said Mr Fordham.
In the past 10 years nat-ional building costs have risen 82 per cent while retail prices have risen 31 per cent.
The London Olympics have already become controversial as their estimated cost has swollen to £9.3bn. Within this, estimated construction costs have risen 12 per cent from £876m to £983m in a matter of months.
PS If constructions costs alone were to be a mere £983m, what is the excess £8+bn to be spent on? One gets the feeling that a few palms are to greased... Are there more Jack Lemleys in the background?

Today's report

2007-07-20T10:50:00.000-07:00

It's now becoming a daily report! The Olympic Development Authority has now been accused of running the Olympic planning as though it is Only Fools and Horses. Unfortunately they stopped at short of calling Tessa Jowell a plonker, but it seems that more information is being requested by the National Audit Authority, as they say not enough details are available, despite the fact that they have now agreed the budget for the games is now £9 billion. The final design, for instance, of the stadium will not be known until the Autumn. And what about the funds? The ODA have now been told that they would draw £600 million from the Lottery Funds, thus making it not available for would be young sportsman and women. They have said that it will be repaid from the sale of land when the games are over, but interestingly enough this is not legally binding - despite the fact that this was one of the initial premises of the games....
Makes you wonder what else will come to light, doesn't it?

Jack Lemley

2007-07-19T10:39:00.000-07:00

Who he? Jack Lemley was the head of the London Olympics Development Committee. He worked there for 7 months, 2 days a week at the rate of £600,000 a year. It has now been announced that he received compensation for loss of office when he left (voluntarily!!!) last year of £380,000 - not a bad deal! Heck, he's the one who admitted the price of the Olympics would rise as it was way underquoted, and that there would be infighting between the members of the committee. Please, could I quit my job and receive a similar sum (I've been here *far* longer, and worked five days a week often for up to 12 hours a day)?? Come to think of it, how much can we pay the rest of the committee to go and forget the whole thing? Would it be cheaper than continuing with this white elephant?
Oh, and here's a thought in passing - how much will the collapse of the PPP with Metronet, who were updating the London Underground, bring about a delay in improving the quality of the tube service in time for the Olympics? And how much will it cost to reinstate another firm to the same position? It's not often I agree with Red Ken, our axolotl loving Mayor of London, but I must say that I always thought the original Public/Private Partnership was regarded by the various firms that tendered for this to write blank cheques. Perhaps a few more firms could have been considered in this position in competition... At least some insolvency firms will make some money out of the situation - currently five have been appointed.

A shot from the past

2007-07-13T18:52:00.000-07:00

It was only today that I came across a copy of the following letter, published in the London Evening Standard as long ago as 17 October 2002, from a member of the British Olympic Team - I make no comment, other than to ponder over the use of Ove Arup as a contractor....

"So your correspondent Matt Hughes believes that a London Olympic Games would not cost taxpayers money (London Olympics would be in Profit, Tuesday 15 October)?

"The report he quotes, which was commissioned by the Government, was undertaken by Ove Arup. Fabulous construction engineers, but not economic forecasters. Also, by coincidence, the same Ove Arup who won numerous awards for their buildings for Sydney 2000.

"Here are the facts from Sydney 2000. In 1993, when they bid for the Games, they claimed they would cost only $AUS 3 billion (£1 billion). This year the Auditor-General of New South Wales found the real cost ended up being $AUS 6.6 billion. At the time of the bid, it was claimed only $AUS 363 million would come from the public purse. The Auditor-General found it ended up between $AUS 1.7 billion and $AUS 2.4 billion (£580m and £840m). The reason for the discrepancy was that the bid budget had excluded massive cost items like facilities and infrastructure investment, as well as the diversion of public resources like police time. The Ove Arup figures do the same thing.

"The Athens bid committee pulled the same stunt. At the time of their bid in 1997, the budget was just $1.3 billion (£840 million). They projected a profit of $36m (£23m). In 2000, once the poor early planning of the Games had been recognised, this figure leapt to $5.3 billion (£3.4 billion). In April 2001 the Finance Ministry increased their estimate to $6.2 (£4.0 billion); and even that excludes up to $600m (£400m) of increased security post September-11.

"On the revenue side, the figures are based on an assumption of ever-increasing price for the TV revenues. What happens if the current slump in advertising persists? A big hole opens up in the bid budgets, that's what. And you can ask the Football League what that feels like.
"Under the rules of bidding for an Olympics, the International Olympic Committee insists that host cities underwrite all liabilities of the Games. Unless the GLA does this, £15m worth of work on the bid will go straight into a Lausanne dustbin. If the GLA underwrites the Games, each household in London is writing a £1,300 insurance contract on the 2012 Games. Should we do this without a proper discussion?

"I am not against a London Olympic bid. But please let's have a proper discussion, based on a proper cost/benefit study. As a start Ken Livingstone and Minister for Sport Richard Caborn have to publish the Ove Arup report, which they commissioned with taxpayers money, and the British Olympic Association's bid dossier so that Londoners can decide whether we trust them to avoid another Millennium Dome."

Michael Liebreich
British Olympic Team 1992
Notting Hill, W11

The flat pack games?

2007-07-10T10:52:00.000-07:00

The latest rumour, on BBC1 London program today, was that costs were now to be reduced, and the stadium would no longer have the full roof that was included in the design to IOC. Also that various venues could be dismantled and reassembled elsewhere in the country. Suddenly that white elephant word "Dome" has been brought into play, as it is feared that the costs will run away and that the intended post-Games use of the various venues being constructed will not be as viable as at first thought. Surprise!!! Tessa Jowell was on TV again, talking over the interviewer who was trying to get a word in edgeways to raise the questions that we all want answers to. Another representative of the government managed to say, on film, that the costs of £9million for two weeks of Games was excessive and that it was essential that post-Games usage should now be a major goal - and Ms Jowell confirmed her agreement to this, strangely actually making a positive statement instead of mouthing platitudes. She also confirmed that she was the Minister for the Olympics, and solely responsible for their success; wonder where she'll be come 2006; another positive statement (wow - another!) was that, even though they would be announcing that this week the second major sponsor for the Games was a French power company 68% of the costs were to be borne by the Exchequer - carefully overlooking the fact that, like the fine levied on the BBC for the Blue Peter competition fiasco, all funds are being paid by the people - you and I. Have they really thought this is what we truly want?

With apologies to credit card companies

2007-06-08T07:23:00.000-07:00

I liked this comment on a website elswhere:

Price of a logo: £400,000

Price of the 2012 Olympics: Priceless...

Logo - what a way to go!

2007-06-06T10:31:00.000-07:00

Well, that's it - another £400,000 down the drain with a logo that has already been partially removed as it can make people ill! And the colours that are left are ones that are the least attractive to those (including me) who are colour blind. It was chosen by a committee (a committee keeps minutes and wastes hours) - and the Mayor of London hates it. Day 1 and 400,000 people have signed an online petition to change it. I like the guy who suggested that a better logo would be a white elephant....

Stadium?

2007-04-28T00:39:00.000-07:00

The latest news now is that the cost of the main stadium has risen from £280 million to £600 million. Well, maybe. Noone except the GLC council knows. The meeting to discuss the costs was held in camera, and they ain't saying any more. Anyone want to take bets on the cost of this element alone?

2007-04-16T22:43:00.000-07:00

Today's news was the cost of the NHS computer. A member of the opposition appeared on TV this morning to say that its cost is now £12.4bn - "that's the cost of the Olympics". Hello?? I thought we'd now agreed that the cost was to be £10bn, and that was the final budget figure. Now we have a 25% increase. I was talking over the weekend with a friend, and I said I reckoned that the final cost would be £12bn, and he accepted a £5 wager that it would exceed £15bn. Looks like his fiver is safe! Now who's betting on the final cost?

2007-03-15T22:47:00.000-07:00

Ooops - apologies. Ms Jowell forgot to mention that reclaiming the land required for the Olympic site and the cost of rehousing all the homes and businesses in the area will now be an additional £1.15 billion (how careless!)- so that'll be a total cost of £10.48 billion. And our local "community" hospital has wards that are closed, and of the two nearest major hospitals one of them will have no A&E unit shortly. And that's just a hint if what we are going without before tax money is hemmoraged into this great bottomless pit called the Olympics. I feel sorry for whichever political party takes over from the current one; they will no doubt lose their position when the final cost is made public! I will not reduce this blog to party politics; I am convinced that any politician in any political party on an ego trip (and which one isn't?) would support any project of this nature - and then be unable to retract because they have made their primary intention clear. Remember the Dome?

2007-03-15T08:09:00.000-07:00

Well, that's it - it's 2007, five years to go, and the announcement has now been made. Costs are now estimated to be £9.3 billion - all bets as to whether the cost will top £10 billion are now off. The next target will be £15 billion...

The Cost of the 2012 Olympics

2007-02-05T20:38:00.000-08:00

So do you really believe Lord Coe, Ken Livingstone and Tony Blair about the cost of the 2012 London Olympics? Just bear this in mind. The cost of the Greek Olympics was $10 to $12 billion - more than 5% of the country's gross domestic product. Two weeks before the Greek Olympics opened less than half of the tickets had been sold. The cost of the security alone was $1.5 billion. Don't believe me? Read http://mutualfunds.about.com/od/news/a/2004_olymics.htm!

And the value of the facilities afterwards? Four years after the Sydney Olympics, under-used venues are costing taxpayers $32 million (in U.S. dollars) a year to keep afloat, and the government expects that some venues will need at least another decade to break even.

My bet is that the current estimated cost (which has risen from £1.5 billion to £9 billion) is still well below the final figure. In fact I'll take a bet right now that a minimum of £10 billion is required to get this project up and running. There is no way that London alone can afford to stage this event; perhaps, now that we have at last repaid the lend/lease loan after more than 60 years we can start all over again. Grabber Gordon Brown has already extracted a fortune from the UK, by raiding pension funds and introducing a whole raft of stealth taxes; where else will the money come from to enable us to fund this ego raising opportunity?

This article was posted on the 'net in 2003 (http://www.liebreich.com/LDC/HTML/Olympics/London/Sydney.html):
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Auditor-General of New South Wales found the eventual cost of Sydney 2000 was over twice the budget costs estimated by the bid committee.
When Sydney bid for the 2000 Games, the bid committee estimated a total cost of $AUS 3.0 billion (£1.0 billion), of which just $AUS 363.5m (£125m) would be borne by the public. By 1998, however, when the Auditor-General of New South Wales was called in to review the Games's budget, it became clear that this figure was a huge understatement. He estimated that the true cost of the Games was more like $AUS 5.9 billion (£2.1 billion), of which the public would be paying $AUS 2.3 billion (£800m).
The reason for the huge discrepancy was that the bid budget was based on "only those direct costs which have an additional cash effect on the budgets of relevant agencies." In other words, the budget had excluded many capital costs for facilities and infrastructure, as well as, for instance, most of the costs of providing security, which naturally fell on the public purse. The original budget had also excluded costs which might crystallise after the Games, for instance in the form of redundancy payments, as well as the costs of disruption to public services. The original Sydney bid budget did, however, include in its calculations all potential revenues, including $AUS 600m of putative increases in tax income to the Government.
In the words of the Auditor-General of New South Wales: "Limiting the costs to direct costs but allowing revenues to reflect indirect revenues mingles incompatible concepts." This sort of financial shenanigins is why it is important that the plans and budget for a potential London bid are made public in advance of any decision by the Government whether or not to bid.
He also made a point of condemning the excessive secrecy which surrounded the Sydney bid budget and the subsequent operations of the Games Organising Committee. "One of the issues which has provided a backdrop to this audit is the unnecessary secrecy which has been associated with the preparations for the Sydney 2000 Games.”
In 2002 the Auditor-General of New South Wales undertook a further audit, confirming that the Sydney Games had ended up costing $AUS 6.6 billion (£2.3 billion), and had cost the public purse somewhere between $AUS 1.7 and 2.4 billion (between £580m and £830m), depending on your estimate of incremental tax revenues.
A shortfall as modest as Sydney’s for a London Olympic Games would add a one-off charge of £187 to each London household's council tax.
The cost of a London Olympics would, however, be far higher than those of Sydney. Firstly because of the enormously under-invested state of London's sporting facilities and transport infrastructure, and secondly because of the massively increased cost of security since September 11th. Perhaps Athens would be a better guide?
--------------------------------------------------------------
Note the phrase "it is important that the plans and budget for a potential London bid are made public in advance of any decision by the Government whether or not to bid" - did anyone see (apart from the beautiful pictures of the proposed buildings, Olympic park etc) see the plans and budgets before the bid was made? Come to think of it, has anyone seen them since? Why does lord Coe continue to avoid questions relating to the budget for the Games? Answers to these questions will, no doubt, come in 2013!

And try reading the Guardian's article on the cost of the Games at http://observer.guardian.co.uk/sport/story/0,,1951845,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1

A little depressing?

Answers to this posting please!!
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It's the 23 February 2007 - the above was posted on 7 February 2007. Last night it was announced that the cost of the games will now be £9 billion (sorry, Guardian, you're out of date!). Next week the Olympic committee will arrive to see how matters are progressing. Anyone taking bets on the final cost now? Bet the cost of fireworks alone will add a few tens of thousands! Let's hope they're better than the "River of Fire" at the Millennium.

28 February 2007 - and, yes, we've done it - costs now have been stated by an evening paper in London to exceed £10 billion. Tony B Liar says that it will be a wonderful showcase; now why do I think I heard that before about the Millennium Dome? Meanwhile Red Ken has said that the cost will not exceed £5.1 million - who do you want to believe? Time will tell.