Wanted: supplier of Olympic insoles

Games organiser Locog is issuing a total £750 million in contracts, and its latest batch includes a request for 4,000 jackets for photographers at the Games.

It is also looking for a firm to design, supply, install and then remove anti-shatter window film to protect against bomb threats at competition venues and hotels. The committee has written a 1,000-word procurement document for a contract for 1,850 rain shields, to keep the desks of journalists and Games officials dry at 20 Olympic and Paralympic venues.

It specifies that the covers should "repel water, be clear so that users can read a computer screen through the material, and be made of a lightweight and flexible material so they can be rolled up whilst not in use".

At the polyclinic serving the Olympics in Stratford, a podiatry contract requires a "full range of insoles (all sizes), examination couches, a classic four-drawer white surgery unit, trolley lamp with magnifying glass, glass jars with lid, drill with extractor, small vacuum cleaner" plus sterile podiatry equipment.

Auctioneers are being sought to dispose of Olympic assets when all the excitement is over, including video recorders and MRI scanners.
Hopefuls are asked to compile a catalogue of items, value them, and run an auction or private sale.

There is, Locog concedes in its advertisement, the chance that the successful applicant will need to warehouse any unsold items. Deals still to be set out in detail include one to produce an Olympic village newspaper, and contracts for work at the vet clinic and anti-doping service for equestrian events in Greenwich Park.

By next month the procurement deals are expected to be 95 per cent complete. Some 70 per cent of Locog's suppliers are small and medium-size firms, with a third coming from London.

UK businesses will benefit from over 90 per cent of the money available.

"The high profile contracts may be long gone, but there are still hundreds of opportunities for smaller businesses in the run up to London 2012, in everything from catering to merchandising, logistics and IT," said Chris Daniels, head of London 2012 for Lloyds Banking Group.

"We've been hosting matchmaking events to help pair up smaller businesses with larger firms who already have Olympic contracts."