Latest accounts suggest more than £100m of unspent Olympics contingency money could be handed back to Treasury
The government has claimed it is increasingly confident of delivering the London 2012 Olympics within its £9.3bn budget and is on course to hand more than £100m back to the Treasury, according to the latest figures.
The latest quarterly accounts show that there is £527m of unspent contingency remaining, with the most recent assessment of likely risks showing that more than £100m of the budget is likely to remain unspent.
With 150 days to go until the Olympics – an occasion marked by the London mayor, Boris Johnson, by sailing a set of giant Olympic rings down the Thames on a barge – the sports minister, Hugh Robertson, refused to predict exactly how much contingency would remain.
He said negotiations were ongoing with the Treasury over how much would be made available to cover potential unexpected operational costs and how much it would retain of the original £9.3bn budget.
The £9.3bn figure, set in 2007 after the original bid estimate of £2.3bn more than trebled, always included £2.7bn in contingency funding.
A critical report from the National Audit Office in December last year said there was a "real risk" of busting the £9.3bn budget because of a huge increase in the security budget and other costs.
But Robertson said he was increasingly confident that the project would come in under budget and that the government would "not quite empty the piggy bank".
"It is fair to say we are increasingly confident we can land this on time and within budget. It is enormously encouraging that we are 96% complete and still have £500m in the budget," he said.
"That allows us to concentrate on the 'Great' campaign and really putting some muscle behind the sports legacy."
The figures also show that £21m originally earmarked within the Olympic budget to pay for the so-called Great campaign marketing Britain as a tourist, business and study destination will now be met by government departments.
But the government has also been forced to defend itself against suggestions that money saved in building the venues for the Games has increasingly been funnelled through to organisers to help balance its £2bn privately raised budget.
Robertson said that another increase in the amount of public money available to London 2012 organisers, from £118m to £154m in the last quarter, was not a sign that it was propping up the budget of the organising committee, Locog, with public funds.
Aside from funding for security and the Paralympics, which the government had always agreed to provide under the terms of its agreement with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Tuesday's figures showed that another £36m had been handed to organisers.
Robertson said that the money was for work that was to have been carried out by the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), which has spent £7.1bn constructing the venues for the Games, but that Locog was now better placed to deliver. At the last quarterly update, the government pledged £41m to double the budget of the opening and closing ceremonies.
He said he was "aware of the increasing feeling" that Locog should be more transparent over how it spends its money but said it would be "illegal" to change the basis of the original contract signed with the IOC in 2005.
As a private company Locog is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, despite now being in receipt of substantial public funds, and has delayed publication of its final set of accounts until after the Games.
"I am very aware of the increasing feeling around the place that people want more access to Locog," he said. "I have absolutely made sure that any public money that comes into Locog will be subject to the same approval process as all the money that has come to the ODA."
Robertson also supported Locog's stance on ticketing, amid renewed scrutiny of the process. It has come under increasing pressure to reveal exactly how many of the 8.8m tickets have been sold in each price category and the breakdown for each session.
But Robertson, who admitted that a full breakdown may not be made available until after the Games, said he wanted Locog to concentrate on the final push to sell 2m-plus remaining tickets amid huge demand.
"It's no secret there has been some friction between [ticketing partner] Ticketmaster and Locog. The crucial thing is that everything is done to get that right," said Robertson.
"I don't want them distracted by publishing information rather than getting that right."
Robertson also ruled out using some of the projected budget underspend to fund the £7m wrap around the stadium that became a magnet for protest after it was sponsored by Dow Chemical, which campaigners claim still has ongoing liabilities relating to the 1984 Bhopal disaster.
"The time for a protest, if any protest needed to be had, was the moment that the IOC signed up Dow in the first place," he said.
In addition to the deal with Locog for the stadium wrap, Dow signed a £100m 10-year sponsorship deal with the IOC in 2010.