黑洞社区

The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) has asked financial consultant KPMG to return and revalidate the budget for the 2012 Games.

A senior City source said a final budget was presently being calculated by CLM, the consortium that is acting as the ODA鈥檚 delivery partner for the Games. KMPG鈥檚 job is to separately verify those costs before they are handed to the Treasury next month.

It is understood that the construction budget will exceed the present estimate of 拢3.3bn. That costing, which is 拢900m more than the original figure, was validated by KPMG in a separate report last year.

The source said: 鈥淚t鈥檚 all about benchmarking the costs, the CLM delivery partner has its view on figures and then it鈥檚 up to KPMG to produce a benchmark agreeing or disagreeing. There have been many areas of conflict but the process should be concluded by mid to late February.鈥�

Once the figure is communicated to the Treasury, it will be followed by a period of intense negotiation between the ODA, the culture department and the Treasury as to how much costs can rise to accommodate the ambitions of the Games鈥� designers.

Once that figure has been established the ODA can sign off the designs for most venues and the tenders can be put out to construction companies.

He added: 鈥淣o designs are final at this stage; even the Olympic stadium is only at concept stage. Once the culture department broadly supports the designs and the Treasury broadly supports the figures then the ODA and its team can crack on with the procurement. At this stage, though, nobody knows how long it will take the Treasury to sign off the figures.鈥�

The ODA told 黑洞社区 that KPMG would be working with CLM to ensure that project costs met value for money criteria.

It is also understood that Gardiner & Theobald has been brought in to begin costing groundworks and cabling for a section of the Olympic estate.

The move comes as a report by MPs in the House of Commons鈥� culture, media and sport select committee criticised the government's handling of the rising costs of the Games.

The report said that the Treasury 鈥渃ould and should鈥� have publicised its concerns about potential cost overruns before the original London bid was submitted.

The report also called for the terms of the ODA鈥檚 contract with CLM to be made public.

John Whittingdale, the committee chairman, said: 鈥淒oubts about final costs must be resolved if public confidence in the project is to be maintained. Costs are still rising and the time has come for the Treasury and others to share the burden of any increases.鈥�
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