London Olympics 2012

I love the Olympics. It’s a great chance to see the biggest and the best stars from around the world complete in one of the best displays of human achievement.  Take the sport out of the Olympics and you have a rather interesting business.  You have series of business which are working to promote themselves and get ahead.  You also have a number of different organisations which are working together in order to create a stadium and a place to accommodate the athletes.  So what else can we find out about the games, through the FoI act?

A full breakdown of costs? Would that be good enough for you, to start with?  Here you are!  The thing is this also includes breakdown of all costs after the games.  Bet you didn't expect to get this level of details did you?  It’s amazing the level that these reports go to, and how comprehensive.  Bet you didn't know that we could get these did we?  

What about the cost of running the olympic torch through your authority?  Coleraine Council gave their breakdown of costs and how much it cost.  The thing that surprised me was that the NI tourist board donated a lot of money for this to happen. This must have been something that the Northern Ireland Tourist board really wanted to happen. It also spent £1500 on bunting.  What is it with us British and Bunting?  This was a heck of a lot of money for essentially a publicity stunt which lasted a day.  Not really that good, eh?  Did make me think of how much money Welsh Councils spent on the olympic processions.  Results will be posted when I get the answer.  

Hackney council has a list of complaints that have been made about the London Olympics.  You can find it here. The issue is that this was written in 2010.  Whilst an interesting insight, it would be nice to see how this had developed since.  Maybe another request would help?  The interesting thing to note is that someone complained to the council about the location of travellers.  You would not have thought of them being displaced by this, but someone was defiantely watching. Again, another interesting issue.

This request would have been an interesting one to see. It basically asked what was the cost to West Yorkshire Police for sending police to the games.  The main reasons that it was not answered was that it was not very clear.  It was only refused because the person did get back in time quick enough. The issue is that it was very broad so was needed to be clarified a number of times to get right. Well, given me some inspiration on new FoIs to send.

I would love to come back to this issue.  The Olympics has far more secrets hiding behind unanswered questions and I think that we would all benefit from them being asked. I mean don't you want to know how billions of pounds is making us better off?