Updated Background Papers are now available at http://www.gamesmonitor.org.uk/media_centre

Background Paper 1 - Impact (PDF) 170.23 KB

By Mike Wells

Security precautions for London 2012 include the construction of a 17.5 km, 5,000volt electric fence, topped with 900 daylight and night vision surveillance cameras spaced at 50 metre intervals. On first sight of the fence you could be forgiven for thinking you had slipped through a wormhole in the space-time continuum to find yourself on the perimeter of a Soviet era Gulag.

Conclusions and Recommendations of the House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee Report 22 April 2008

1. Foreseeable requirements for public sector funding were excluded from the estimates at the time of the bid to host the Games, giving an unrealistic picture of the expected costs. Contrary to good practice, the Department [of Culture Media and Sport] did not include programme contingency, now £2.7 billion, because the scale and complexity of the undertaking were not appreciated at the time of the bid. The costs of tax and security, now estimated at over £1.4 billion, were also excluded from the estimates as they were uncertain. Yet £738 million of funding from the private sector was included, despite not being supported by robust analysis. All costs and revenues should have been included from the outset, with the uncertainties explained and a contingency provided.
   
   

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.

London Olympic chiefs defended the salaries of its top executives on Thursday after it emerged some were earning up to 100,000 pounds more than first thought.About seven senior executives at the Olympic Delivery Authority are being paid more than 200,000 pounds. The authority published the salaries of its executives in its annual report for 2006/7, but the report only included the amount earned so far that year.

Some more fascinating evidence about how the original bid costings were £5bn too low emerged from the House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee deliberations on 14 Nov 2007.

• Entire £2.7bn contingency fund is to be used up
• Final London 2012 bill will be three times bid figure

The most pessimistic estimates of the final bill for the London 2012 Olympics were vindicated yesterday when the most senior civil servant involved on the project admitted that the entire £2.7bn contingency fund for the project would probably be spent.

Martin Slavin writes: A consistent pattern of behaviour exhibited by ODA/LDA personnel we have encountered has become apparent to all of us who have been actively involved in the critical appraisal and/or opposition to the Olympic development. It is their chaotic project management.