Yorkshire Post: The Olympic race against time for taxpayers

By Blair Gibbs

IN five years' time, the torch will be lit in Stratford to celebrate the opening of the 2012 London Olympic Games. On the current course, it remains to be seen whether British taxpayers will have much to celebrate when the two-week event starts.

We have already come a long way from July 2005 when the successful bid was first announced. Back then, jubilation at the victory of London was certainly heightened by satisfaction at beating the French, the long-standing favourites. There had been scepticism throughout the bid process; London could not match Paris or the other bidding cities for their enthusiasm to win the games, or the infrastructure they already had in place.

Over the last two years, that initial excitement has subsided and been replaced by a growing distrust of the entire project.

According to a Populus poll last November, while a majority still supported 2012, the number of people disagreeing that "the benefit to Britain of having the Olympics here is well worth the money it will cost to stage the Games" had risen to more than a third.

Central to this disillusionment is that people are now wary of just
how much they might have to pay. Eighty-seven per cent of those
polled in the same survey agreed that it was inevitable that the
costs of the Olympics would prove much higher than initial estimates. So far they are being proved correct.

When the Olympics bid was commissioned, it was going to cost just £2.35bn. That sum was going to come from the National Lottery and an additional levy on London council taxpayers.

Now, the Olympics is set to cost £9.35bn and £6bn of that is to come from general taxation, so taxpayers in Yorkshire will not escape the
final bill.

As American Congressman Everett Dirksen once said: "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money."

There have been a number of reasons why the Olympics has gone over-budget. First, the initial budget was massively flawed. As the Public Accounts Committee has noted, it didn't include whole categories of cost like VAT, contingency margins and wider security. It also expected to raise £738m in private funding; a quarter of the total. Now no significant private funding is expected for the building of the venues. On reflection, it really does look like a back-of-a-fag-packet calculation that was totally unrealistic.

What is worse is that there has already been a catalogue of mistakes and misfortunes in the running of this project that have pushed the cost up further.

The unelected quangos running the project – the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games and the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) – thought nothing about blowing £400,000 on a bizarre logo no-one liked. A further £100,000 was spent sending a few lucky MPs on visits to countries that had previously hosted the games.

Just recently, Japanese Knotweed, the highly invasive plant that needs to be laboriously cleared before construction can take place, was discovered on the site of the two main Olympic stadia.

However, these aren't the biggest problems. The Public Accounts Committee discovered that proper arrangements for monitoring progress and managing risk were not in place and that there were no plans to ensure the facilities being built were suitable for new users after the Games have ended.

This and many more worrying blunders have contributed to the increase in the budget and threaten to create new over-runs because the Government has no limit on its liability for the cost of the Olympics – unlike a private company with customers and shareholders.

These problems are typical of many other over-runs discovered by a recent TaxPayers' Alliance survey of government projects, often with roots in bad management practice and political meddling. The American Jack Lemley left his post as ODA chairman last October saying: "I went there to build things, not to sit and talk about it." Edward Leigh MP, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, said the project had "severe management difficulties", describing it as "a recipe for arguments and delay".

It was never possible to deliver the Olympics within the budget outlined at the bid and sold to voters. Those responsible should admit that and be held accountable for their mistakes.

However, I'm more interested in the future of the project and making the Games work. I want to ensure that the Olympics
does not go further over-budget (which is what happened in Athens as the final date loomed), not just in the interests of taxpayers, but because further increases would tarnish London's reputation and the whole two-week event, even before we have had a chance to win any medals.

That is why the TaxPayers' Alliance has launched a "2012 Watchdog". This new campaign will keep a close eye on the project, holding politicians accountable if they don't control costs and making sure that £9.35bn really is the final budget for the 2012 Olympics.

We will also monitor any signs that they are hiding costs in other budgets, or in contractual small print. And hopefully we can do our bit to represent taxpayers throughout Britain who love the idea of the London Olympics, but should never be asked to sign blank cheques.

Blair Gibbs is campaign director for the TaxPayers' Alliance