Leader urged to ‘be honest’ over Commonwealth Games cost

Speaking during Tuesday's cabinet meeting leader of the Conservative group, Councillor Robert Alden, said that "everyone" knew that the Games was going to have an impact on the council’s revenue budget, despite claims at the outset that this would not be the case.

Last week it was revealed that the cost of the Athletes’ Village would be £92 million more than first expected, with £25 million of this being deferred until after the Games to be spent on ‘legacy mode’.

However the decision to spend this additional money is not subject to call-in by opposition councillors, meaning that it can not be subject to proper scrutiny before being approved.

The council claims that this is because there is no time for the decision to be called in, saying that work on Plot 1 of the site needs to begin as soon as possible.

But Councillor Alden has called on the council to "be honest" about the impact of these additional costs, including the fact that the increase almost certainly means that the council will have to dip into its revenue budget.

“The fact that the report is exempt from call-in – I’d say it’s disappointing, but in fact it’s much worse than that,” he said.

“When the national bus depot report came up, and again with plot 7, they were exempt from call-in on the grounds that there was going to be a full business case, and people could properly scrutinise that.

“But then you get to the full business case and that’s been exempt as well, so there can’t be proper scrutiny.

“That is just no way to run a project, and no way to get the city’s support behind this. Because we all know, and every report you read knows, that it’s going to cost more than was said. It’s going to impact on the revenue budget when the council said it wouldn’t – everyone knows that.

“Why not just be open and honest with that, and have an open conversation with the public two years out, rather than exempting information, hiding it behind confidence, not allowing it to be properly scrutinised?

“It’s also blindingly obvious to anyone that the cost of converting these properties to accommodation afterwards is clearly a cost of the Games. Because if you were just building a village directly you wouldn’t need to spend that £25 million.

“And not including it just undermines the whole business case, and it’s clearly been done to make the overspend not look as bad as it is.

“It’s just kicking the cost down the road.”

Responding to Councillor Alden’s comments, leader of the council Ian Ward said that a report on the revenue costs to the council would be forthcoming.

And he also outlined the benefits that the Games would bring to the city, saying they would "change the city for the better".

“We accept that we need to set out the full costs and benefits of the Games coming to the city,” he said.

“The Athletes’ Village will bring in millions in new homes bonus council tax income to the city council, and the village of course will provide additional homes which hadn’t been planned for, which otherwise would have had to be provided outside of the city, and outside of the city would inevitably be on either green belt or greenfield sites.

“So we will be producing a report that sets out the full costs and benefits to the city of hosting the Games – that report will go back to Resources Overview and Scrutiny Committee in July of this year, and notwithstanding all of that there is of course the £500 million benefits to the wider economy, of hosting the Games, the 22,000 jobs that will be created, the 12,000 volunteers that will need to be recruited, many of whom will have the opportunity to obtain a qualification as a result of volunteering for the Games, and the wider benefit that this will produce to the city and regional economy going forward.

“And I’m still of the view, and no one has persuaded me differently, that people will look back on these Games in the future, and say that is when the city changed for the better.

“So for all those reasons I believe we are right to continue to do what we can to deliver the best possible CWG here in the city of Birmingham.”