Olympic funding plans slammed by MPs
Tuesday, 22 April 2008 12:01 AM
The government has again been criticised for its "entirely unrealistic" initial assessment of the estimated cost of the London 2012 Olympic Games.
The Commons' public accounts committee is critical of financial planning for the Games after the government increased its estimate of their cost from just over £4 billion at the time of the bid to £9.3 billion in March 2007.
Among the mistakes made in the initial planning are a failure to include tax expenses or policing and security provision.
The report also criticises private sector funding provision, which was originally set at £738 million. Such a prediction has proved to be "little more than wishful thinking", resulting in a greater reliance on funding from the National Lottery as a result.
"Despite the astonishing increase in the level of public funding for the Games, the department did not specify in detail precisely what will be delivered for this money, including the legacy benefits," PAC chairman Edward Leigh said.
"Without this essential information, the public will find it hard to be confident in the department's ability to deliver the Olympics programme within the new higher budget."
Responding to the report, the chief executive of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) said his organisation had made a "great deal of progress" in the last year.
"We believe we have a realistic budget and adequate contingency and are confident that we can deliver within it," David Higgins said.
"We will allocate contingency to manage risks as we go forward as is common for any project of this scale and complexity."
He brushed off the report's concerns about a lack of commitment to the long-term legacy of the Games, pointing out that 75 per cent of spending is on regeneration and legacy.
And Mr Higgins said the economic and social benefits of the Games were already being experienced.
"Over one in ten workers on the Olympic Park workforce were previously unemployed before finding work helping deliver the Games and over a third of these workers live locally," he added.
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