THE report we’ve all been waiting for is out. Quietly, just before the holidays, the much-trumpeted KPMG review into the Olympic use of Greenwich Park was published on the London 2012 website. And my goodness, it’s convincing.
It’s twelve pages long, of which precisely one page is about the Park. Including the headings and titles, this page contains 215 words. I’ve read more detailed analyses on the back of the average cornflakes packet.
KPMG’s conclusion amounts to all of 45 words, which I quote in full: “Based on the documentation and high-level costings provided by LOCOG, the costs of providing an alternative Modern Pentathlon facility together with temporary accommodation mean that it is unlikely that an alternative location could be delivered for a lower cost than the Greenwich Park option.”
Note the first part of that sentence: “Based on the documentation and high-level costings provided by LOCOG.” According to the preface, this study lasted from 12 August to 9 December. Can it really be true that in all that time, all they have accomplished is to read and repeat the claims made by LOCOG, a party with a clear vested interest in the status quo?
Yes, it can. The preface continues: “In preparing the report, our primary source has been internal management information and representations made to us by management of the ODA, LOCOG and the Government Olympic Executive. We do not accept responsibility for such information, which remains the responsibility of the respective management…We have not…sought to establish the reliability of the sources by reference to other evidence.
“This engagement is not…conducted in accordance with any generally accepted [accounting] assurance standards and consequently no assurance opinion is expressed. We draw your attention to the limitations in the information available to us. We have had limited access to the management of the alternative venues considered or to other third parties.
“We must emphasise that the realisation of the forecasts prepared by the ODA and LOCOG is dependent on the continuing validity of the assumptions on which they are based…We accept no responsibility for the realisation of the projections…we do not accept responsibility for the underlying data.”
I can’t think of many other occasions where an official report has been preceded by a warning that its contents are essentially worthless – a warning that lasts, moreover, about four times longer than the conclusions it pre-emptively dismisses. In their tortured, self-exculpatory prose, one can sense KPMG’s entirely justified sensitivity to criticisms by me and others that their work has no real independent or analytic value at all.
Let us quote from the part where the methods of the study are described. “KPMG’s approach principally comprised… considering internal documentation made available by ODA…[and] LOCOG…discussions with key personnel from the ODA, LOCOG and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport…discussions with a small number of third parties approved by the ODA, LOCOG and/or the DCMS.”
Costings used in the report – both to support the existing venues and dismiss their potential alternatives – were derived from “high-level cost estimates…developed by the ODA.” Incredibly, “several of the operational costs were derived from the Bid Book costings, as the best available source of operational cost estimates, inflated to 2012 prices.”
The Bid Book, as its name suggests, is the document prepared in 2005 to convince the IOC to award us the Olympics. You may remember that at that stage we were being assured that the Games could be delivered for £2.4 billion – roughly a quarter of the present figure. It is quite extraordinary that KPMG is still working on the basis of numbers – even if only for the operational expenses of the Games – from that era.
Any and all actual figures themselves, by the way, are blanked out from the published version of the report for reasons of “commercial confidentiality” – as is even, hilariously, the inflation multiplier used by KPMG to bring them up to 2012 prices. Each venue has a section headed “Cost Issues” which consists, in each case, of a large blacked-out blob, brilliantly expressing the sheer infantilism of British secrecy.
The whole KPMG saga reminds me a little of that scene in Blackadder Goes Forth when General Melchett is harrumphing with pleasure over a two-foot square piece of mud on a table in his office, representing territory gained by Britain at the Battle of the Somme. “What’s the scale?” asks Blackadder. “One-to-one,” replies Captain Darling.
What I mean by this is that the exercise is such an obvious travesty as to be entirely pointless. If they’d hoped it would convince anyone, they should have tried a little harder to make it look like a serious piece of work.
The report may be short, but it could have been even shorter. Forget 45 words, LOCOG could have cut it down to just 16: “We don’t care what you think, and we’re going to do exactly what we always wanted.”
The ‘stitch-up’ campaign of burying bad news before Christmas seems to have worked in that the national press hardly noticed this flawed review. Only the Telegraph ran a derogatory story that KPMG was paid £200,000 for a conclusion that didn’t save a penny. Crikey – for that amount even I would endure talking to LOCOG for 4 months!
Through Freedom of Information it was learned that KPMG’s terms of reference were to consider and comment on studies presently being considered by LOCOG. But here’s the rub: through FOI it was also learned that no cost benefit analysis was carried out initially by LOCOG before recommending Greenwich Park. It’s amazing that a £12m decision was taken on criteria such as the need for a compact Games and for competitors to be housed nearby in the Olympic Village. Conveniently Greenwich Park has now become the default choice, and a reference point for financial comparisons with other venues.
The KPMG report suggests that moving the venue would incur additional costs in terms of accommodation, security and transport. If they had done their own research rather than accept what LOCOG said, KPMG might have discovered that, had Windsor Park been considered, accommodation would not need to be built, as Holloway College is 2 miles away and it is close to Eton, where the rowers will be. LOCOG also conveniently state that the riding event of Modern Penthatlon has to be near the Olympic stadium, and that building a second stadium would not make financial sense. True, but why not use an existing sports stadium in East London or West Ham’s ground? LOCOG are deperately trying to justify the unjustifiable.
Also in the report KPMG make the assertion that this will be a wonderful experience for residents of the borough? On what evidence are they basing this?If they made a distinction between the residents who live in the vicinity of the Park and the rest of the borough, and between Park users and non-users, they would get a better understanding of the local opposition.
The KPMG report also states that the Park has received approval from the equestrian federations. This is hard to believe unless the minimum requirements of the FEI, who are equally desperate for their own selfish reasons to retain the Park, are being relaxed. For example: training facilities (no 80m gallop) are inadequate, and the new course, if only 5km, is well below Olympic standard, and this won’t please the competitors. There are also the dangers of using a new untried course with many twists and turns, as the accident recently in the “20/20” event at Cardiff proved.
What a whitewash!
Words fail me on the vacuity of the KPMG report so here’s a bit of Horace which I remember from schooldays long ago:
“Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus”.