Venues and infrastructure for the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games are on track to be delivered on time for the Games and the cost is currently forecast to be within the £9,325 million budget for the Games announced in March 2007. In 2009, it was decided that the Olympic Village and the Media Centre would be publicly funded after the economic downturn left the private finance plans untenable. These decisions were made on clear value for money grounds, but required some £621 million of contingency funding from within the budget, with the requirement reduced by savings elsewhere on the Olympic Delivery Authority's programme. During 2009, the Government Olympic Executive made progress in bringing together the delivery plans of the various organisations involved and developing an integrated programme. These plans need to be finalised so that testing can start in early 2011. The Home Office has prepared costed plans for its Olympic safety and security programme. However, the Home Office and the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) have not yet agreed the precise responsibilities, scope and costs for venues security operations. Concerns remain over: the location of the Media Centre away from the Stratford transport hub and the securing of intended legacy benefits from the Olympic Park and associated venues, including the Media Centre; and the risk of LOCOG being in deficit after the Games.

The Handbook of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games is an officially-licensed account of the world's greatest sporting and cultural event. It tells the complete story of the 2012 Games from inception, through the successful bidding process and the planning and preparation phase, to delivery, the post-Games period and legacy. Written by a world-class team of international sport scholars, researchers and writers, the book offers comprehensive analysis of the full social, cultural, political, historical, economic and sporting context of the Games. From the political, commercial and structural complexities of organising an event on such a scale, to the sporting action that holds the attention of the world, this book illuminates every aspect of the 2012 Games, helping us to better understand the vital role that sport and culture play in contemporary global society. The book is divided into two volumes. Volume One: Making the Games, examines the build-up to London 2012, covering key topics such as: the bidding process planning and decision making financing the Games developing the infrastructure engaging national and international governing bodies of sport engaging the UK public engaging a global public developing a legacy programme the Cultural Olympiad. Richly illustrated with the personal accounts of key stakeholders, from sports administrators and politicians to athletes and spectators, and including essential data and evocative visual material, this book is essential reading for anybody with a personal or professional interest in the Olympic and Paralympic Games, global culture or the development of sport.

The chaos which has emerged over the G4S Olympics security contract was predictable and undermines confidence in those responsible for managing the Games. There is now a last minute scramble to make sure there will be enough security personnel on the ground. In evidence given before Christmas, all those concerned gave assurances that the contract could be met despite more than doubling the number of guards. No credible explanation has been given for an astonishing twelve-fold hike in management costs, from £10 million to £125 million, and G4S still has not been able to deliver. Now troops are having to be drafted in. The Home Office needs to get a grip on LOCOG and G4S urgently. It is still not known just how many security guards will actually be delivered or whether G4S will face any penalty. The Committee will carry out a post-mortem in September. There is also dissatisfaction with how the DCMS has engaged with the Committee. Legitimate monitoring of implementation has been an unnecessarily frustrating process, characterized by a resistance to giving clear and consistent information and a readiness to depart from proper ways of conducting public business. A big concern is that the Department has no intention of producing a single auditable account for the Games, drawing together both the costs within the Public Sector Funding Package of £9.3 billion and those outside. Such an analysis must be produced

This report focuses on the funding UK Sport has allocated to prepare athletes for the Summer Olympic and Paralympic sports at Beijing in 2008 and at London in 2012. It examines what progress the Department and UK Sport have made in implementing the Committee of Public Accounts' 2006 recommendations, whether they have a clear funding strategy and performance framework through which to deliver their objectives for sporting success at London 2012 and beyond, and what steps they are taking to manage the emerging areas of risk.

The Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) and UK Sport have responsibility for elite sport in the UK. To support goals for London 2012, the Government has agreed a package of funding of over £700 million, while the DCMS will be required to raise £100 million from the private sector. This report follows up recommendations in the Committee's previous report on supporting elite athletes published in July 2006 (HC 898, session 2005-06. ISBN 9780215029768). It was found then that many funded sports had not met their medal targets at the Athens games in 2004. In particular concerns were raised about the way UK Sport measured and reported its own performance and the need for greater clarity about the level of performance required from individual sports in order to secure future funding was highlighted. UK Sport continues to plan on the basis that it will receive all of its funding up to 2012. However there remains a risk that the £100 million from the private sector will not all be raised.On the basis of a report by Comptroller and Auditor General (HC 434, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780102953084) the Committee took evidence from the DCMS and UK Sport on their fudning strategy for medial success at London 2012; their setting of targets and monitoring of progress towards the Games; and their approach to securing wider and long term benefits from elite sporting success.

This is the definitive, officially-licensed account of the world's greatest sporting mega-event. It tells the complete story of the 2012 Games from inception, through the successful bidding process and the planning and preparation phase, to delivery, aftermath and legacy.

For every copy of the paperback version sold on the Troubador website, the author will donate £1.50 to Macmillan Cancer Support ** All copies that are pre-ordered in the UK before 1pm on 18th December will be delivered in time for Christmas ** The Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games in 2012 was celebrated as the greatest ceremony ever. It won over critics and the general public, and made the nation proud. Now you can discover exactly how the incredible spectacle was put together, and transformed into what the world saw on the night. The Pandemonium segment of the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games was met with disbelief and awe, and has been widely acclaimed as the most spectacular part of the show. Making Pandemoniumdescribes the entire rehearsal process of the volunteers from a performer’s perspective. Nadeem Masood was one of the volunteers lucky enough to perform on the night. In this book, he takes the reader through the application process, the auditions, and every single rehearsal that led up to the final show. He describes first-hand the highs and the lows, the commitments and sacrifices, working with Danny Boyle and everything that the volunteers were put through. Interspersed with accounts of the preparations that were taken, Masood also touches on the Games Maker experience, giving readers an insight into the entire process that led to volunteers being granted the rare privilege of hosting the Olympic Games. Making Pandemonium will give readers a whole new perspective of the greatest Olympic Games that the world has ever seen. This book will identify with readers interested in sports, memoirs and Olympic history, as well as those who enjoyed watching the ceremony itself.

At the time of London's bid to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012 the cost of the Games was estimated to be just over £4 billion. The costs were to be met by public sector funding of £3.4 billion, with a further £738 million from the private sector. After London was awarded the Games, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Olympic Delivery Authority reviewed the cost estimates and in March 2007 announced a budget of £9.325 billion. The Department has stated that public sector funding will not exceed this figure. The March 2007 budget included contingency provision of £2.747 billion. This sum was not included at the time of the bid. The March 2007 budget also included a preliminary estimate of £600 million for policing and wider security, over and above the cost of site security during construction. No estimate for the cost of policing and wider security was included at the time of the bid. In addition, the Olympic Delivery Authority's programme delivery budget has risen to £570 million, compared with an original estimate of just £16 million. Cost estimates have increased by £5.3 billion, but a significantly lower expectation for private sector funding towards the cost of venues and infrastructure, and the Olympic Village, means the public funding has increased by £5.9 billion. The final cost will depend on disposal of assets after the Games. There is no basis on which to measure achievements regarding the projected legacy benefits of the Games. This report follows the NAO report on this topic published as HC 612, session 2006-07 (ISBN 9780102947335).

One of the distinguishing characteristics of London's bid to host the games was its commitment to legacy where it was argued that ’the legacy would lead to the regeneration of an entire community for the direct benefit of everyone who lives there’. This book adopts a critical approach to the concept of 'legacy' focussing specifically on housing. It argues there will be a range of both intended and unintended legacy outcomes and an urgent need for revised strategies if those original objectives are to be achieved. The concept of legacy is explored in a number of ways, including an overview of housing legacy in other host cities; the experiences and perspectives of those residents decanted to make way for the Olympic Park; a critical review of legacy plans; a detailed analysis of the conversion of the Athletes’ Village into housing; and a case study of the emerging area ’Stratford High Street’, which explores issues of social class change and the limitation of planning policies. Whilst taking housing as its focus, this book adopts a sociological perspective by exploring the likelihood of social class change in order to draw conclusions about 'gentrification', 'social polarisation' and the extent to which 'social inclusion' is reflected in housing legacies.

This is the second in a series of National Audit Office reports on the preparations for hosting the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games (the first report was HC 252, session 2006-07, ISBN 9780102944273). It examines the development of the budget - costs, provisions and funding - for the venues and infrastructure required to host the Games and related costs such as security. On 15 March 2007 the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport announced to Parliament the budget for the Games and infrastructure associated with the Olympic Park and other venues totalling £9.325 billion, some £5.289 billion higher than the cost estimate at the time of the bid in gross terms. This increase in cost estimates, along with a reduction in anticipated private sector funding, means that public sector funding for the Games has increased by £5.906 billion (which includes contingency of £2.747 billion which may not be used in full.) The overall conclusion is that the budget announced in March 2007 represents a significant step forward in putting the Games on a sound financial footing and should help those involved in delivering the Olympic programme to move forward with greater confidence. The budget process followed has been thorough, and the judgements and assumptions made by the Department and the Olympic Delivery Authority have been informed by detailed analysis and expert advice. Significant areas of uncertainty remain such as the finalisation of detailed design specifications, the legacy benefits to be delivered, how potential suppliers will respond to invitations to bid for work, and the impact of inflation in construction prices, as reflected in the high level of contingency that has been provided for. A number of recommendations are made covering the management of the budget and risk.