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Infighting at top is threat to London Olympics legacy, warns government report
Mihir Bose22 Jan 2010
The government's legacy plans for the 2012 Games are at risk according to a confidential government report.
The document urges ministers to take action by the end of May to ensure the Government's pledge of creating a more sporting nation as a result of hosting the London Olympics is fulfilled. Handed to ministers last month, it pinpoints weaknesses in the legacy project ranging from nervousness over budgets, poor communications of goals and a turf war between the Government and Olympics chiefs over what the legacy y targets are and who is responsible for targets.
It warns the government that the answer does not lie in a “rash” of new initiatives but to ensure “a few things are well done”.
The report says the Government's sports legacy delivery board (since renamed the sports steering group) suffered from “paralysis by analysis” and was “introspective”, “reactive” and “defensive”.
Infighting among sports bodies and top officials was “debilitating” and caused by mutual “distrust”, it added.
The report delivers a stark reminder to Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe and Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell that the 2012 legacy remains a principal weakness. The Government's pledge is to get two million more Britons playing sport by 2012 but the report warns against setting up “externally imposed targets”
The Office of Government Commerce, carried out the “Starting Gate” review and based its findings on interviews with former Olympians including Sir Steve Redgrave, sports quangos and the governing bodies of swimming, cycling and rowing.
The report said: “There is a gap, a lack of visibility round the work being done on the ground to deliver the strategy and therefore a natural level of concern and perception that little is being done and that the legacy is at risk.
“At the top and the centre too much time is being diverted into managing organisation friction... and nervously defending budgets.”
Although the report does not name individuals, it is thought Paul Bolt, the head Olympic legacy civil servant at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has clashed with the British Olympic Association, which represents the 26 governing bodies of Olympic sport.
The only group to emerge with credit in the report is the Mayor's Office for what it calls its well presented legacy plans which the public can understand.
A DCMS statement said: “We are absolutely clear about the legacy we want from the 2012 Games – many more people playing sport - and how we will make this happen. We have already achieved a great deal, with record investment producing results. Our priority now is to make sure that we do even better. That is why we commissioned an internal review of the progress made so far. We are working together constructively with all the bodies involved in the legacy from the Games, to deliver a clear strategy to get the nation more active.”
Reader views (6)
blackandtan, leyton says...
11:52pm Sun 21 Mar 10
Drapers Field flooded again on Sunday but a bit of mud will soon be the least of these childrens worries. The Olympic Developement Authority wants to turn the field into an executive car park doing away with the astro turf and there are proposals to build flats on the edges of the field including building over the present site of the school.
A leading councillors vision is to turn this into a community park, but this is dependent on some financing comming from selling part of the land for private housing. This is part of the Northern Olympic Fringe Master Plan. So the London Borough of Waltham Forest will lose a proper recreation ground to the Olympic Developement Authority forever. So is this part of Tessa Jowells wonderfull olympic legacy?
- Fred Robinson, leyton london, 22/03/2010 08:09
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I have to agree, What Legacy?!
- Murph, Kent, 03/02/2010 00:13
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What "legacy"? Mega Events don't create meaningful legagies - just a huge financial disaster for years to come.
- Cally G, Essex, UK, 25/01/2010 10:52
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Very simple: get it out of public hands ASAP. The Dome was a financial disaster until it was sold.
- Bj, East London, 22/01/2010 15:46
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Alininbow, London - the beneficiaries are Jowell, Coe and a large number of other egotistical, overpaid executives. Sadly, Londoners like yourself will be paying for this folly for the next 30 years.
- R.F.York, Yorks, UK, 22/01/2010 15:09
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I live half a mile from the Stadium. The big question is who is this Olympics for?
My local paper, The Advertiser, reports that only one in five of all the workers currently on the site live in the surrounding boroughs. Only 3% of the workers come from Tower Hamlets and only 2% come from Hackney.
Who benefits?
- Alaninbow, London, 22/01/2010 12:20
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