Olympic bosses paying casual staff £1200 a day

Olympic bosses are paying temporary staff up to £1,200 a day.

With the cost of the 2012 London Games spiralling to £9.3 billion, the Olympic Delivery Authority lavished £7,707,000 on only 65 agency workers - the equivalent of around £118,500 each.

Most of the cash 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.

On its website, the firm claims it was responsible for bringing Jack Lemley, head of Lemley International, in as chairman.

But Mr Lemley quit the post just a few months later, saying he had become frustrated by political interference and the high cost of the Games.

At the same time, Reed Personnel Services, of Northampton, was paid £525,939, while Hedra, a "management consulting, solutions and serving company" based in Fleet, Hampshire, received £491,885.

The single highest rate paid to one unidentified temporary worker was £1,200 a day.

The figures revealed yesterday - are sure to plunge the Games and the authority, which is charged with developing sports stadia for 2012, into more controversy.

Anger initially focused on the spiralling budget, which has leapt £2.4billion to an estimated £9.3billion, with taxpayers and the National Lottery footing the extra costs.

But attention is switching to the salaries and fees paid out to those organising the event.

Senior figures on the separate London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, which is chaired by Lord Coe, are also earning generous fees and wages.

Princess Anne, a non-executive director and head of the British Olympic Association, received £4,000 in fees for attending four board meetings lasting around ten hours.

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 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 money had been spent on ensuring all groups in East London, where the Olympic Park will be situated, are represented when job recruitment takes place.

Several reports have been 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.

An authority spokesman said: "This project has a massively challenging timetable. It was essential we hit the ground running during the start-up phase by quickly recruiting agency personnel with extensive industry experience.

"We are working hard to reduce the numbers of agency and interim staff on the project as we recruit full-time permanent positions."

A spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said: "London 2012 is one of the biggest and most complex projects in Europe - twice the size of Heathrow's Terminal 5 in half the time.

"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 programme Dispatches 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 at £100 million.