- 26 Jan 09, 01:42 PM
I've been determined to investigate 2012's efforts to stop people talking about the details of the Olympic project since I was told last year that new staff at London 2012 were required to sign confidentiality agreements.
I wondered why a project with so much public money going into it - £9.3bn - needed to be so secretive.
Now I have learned that companies building the facilities in east London are being forced to sign draconian gagging orders to keep quiet about the details of the project.
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Facing constant controversy about the cost of the Games, Olympic bosses are making companies sign unusually severe "confidentiality undertakings" which restrict them from talking publicly about all details of the work for six years.
I've seen copies of the contracts which even give the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) the right to search a company's premises and e-mails for evidence if they suspect that an employee has passed on information to the media or another third party.
The companies I have talked to are shocked that they have to sign a document which effectively allows 2012 to walk into their premises and start searching them. Legal experts have told me these contracts are draconian.
You can read more about my investigation in the BBC News story, including the response from the ODA.
When I went to Beijing with the Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell in November 2007, I listened to her telling the Chinese about the importance of freedom of speech around their Games last summer.
But it appears there are serious efforts being made to prevent people from talking publicly about our Olympics - unless 2012 want them to.
One leading human rights lawyer has also told me that there are concerns about freedom of speech and human rights in the UK's Olympic Act which gives special powers to the Government regarding the organisation of the Games.
Organisers of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics have told me they have no gagging orders in place ahead of their Games. So why have we?
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I'm going to be doing some research for a school dissertation on 'the economic impact of the 2012 olympics on the national economy' and want to interview companies involved with sponsorship, Gordon Brown, Lord Sebastian Coe and other relevant people. Will these contracts restrict them from talking to me?
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Crikey, what kind of school do you go to?
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grunny92's school is unlikely to be a local one as despite the hype, practically nothing has been done by London 2012 for their benefit.
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Labour government, why are we still surprised?
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A private school in Sheffield, which offers what they call the 'London research trip' where you submit a proposal for a research topic that interests you (not obligatory) and the top 5 get to go to London to research the topic etc. To be honest, I think it is a great idea, that other schools should look at!
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Why I don't particularly agree with a gagging order, knowing how the British media love to drag stars and events down in this country after they have built them up, at least it helps prevent some of the moaning that you know is going to go on in the media until a month or so before the games start.
The Athens and Beijing games were so criticised before they even began (especially in the UK) that maybe LOCOG want to stop any moles feeding the vultures in the media who grasp onto anything to drag a project or person down.
Still we have a right to a free press and are not China so this gagging order cannot stand up, surely?
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Its funny how the majority of british population were against british athletes going to the beijing olympics because if they did, they would be supporting the chinese government for preventing 'freedom of speech'.
wouldnt it be ironic if china failed to send their athletes to london 2012 for this very same reason?
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ODA is a public body. Serve them an FOI request.
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I don't think that the Govt can win on this one.
If they are open, the Press just runs hundreds of 'we can't afford it, we don't want it' trash talk opeds. I've seen several and have written fairly feisty challenges to the journalists concerned and challenged one of their publishers to state similar things about Chicago 2016's bid. Surprisingly, they shut up for a while after that........
Now, if they stop the negativity at source, we bleat on about human rights/freedom of speech etc.
I think the problem is that our society just doesn't have the emotional capability to support long-term big projects like this without regular outbursts, suspicions or treacheries. We'll tolerate huge waste in other areas of the economy which put £9.3bn to shame.....but feeling good? Feeling young? FORGET IT.
Perhaps it's time for a good heart-to-heart about what we REALLY want, with a requirement for politicians and, more importantly, the media, to stop getting PR hard-ons and actually speak like mature adults during that debate?
Then this country might be edged slowly toward a more coherent, more integrated unity?
A dangerous move, me suspects........but worth a thought?
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Comment 9 : rjagger
I think your argument falls down by your assumption that being pro-2012 is de facto the balanced position - the conclusion that is unmistakeably the one at which one will arrive if one gives full consideration to all the factors concerned.
Maybe the journalists would appear to be more realistic with their comments if we weren't required to compare them with the blatant hype and advocacy of those who have a vested interest in the Olympics being welcomed as a "good thing" by the general population.
It's a sorry state of affairs when it's impossible to explore reality without being subjected to ad hominem attacks for being negative.
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Like everything this Government has had its paws on, the 2012 games will be forever tainted by the grubby hand of NuLabour.
By putting a gagging order on people who are building the thing, means we as those who are paying for the games will never know the true cost of them
More red tape
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Why is anyone remotely surprised about this? It is the way things are with this government - it is all about control and it is scary.
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'Maybe the journalists would appear to be more realistic with their comments if we weren't required to compare them with the blatant hype and advocacy of those who have a vested interest in the Olympics being welcomed as a "good thing" by the general population.'
Perhaps but journalists in the UK are particularly guilty about building something up and then doing all they can to pull it to pieces. They got so excited about winning the Olympics and now seem desperate to see it fail. There is never an in between. Its just like our national football and rugby team - their either the best or the worst. And the fact that as soon as England win something, like the Ashes or an athlete does something superb, they then see it as their duty to bring them crashing down. It happens in other countries but nowhere near as much as it does here.
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Its like now. The press are now going to have an inquest into why Andy Murray got knocked out so early when it is again them who build him up as the champion before the slam had even started. He's probably already won Wimbledon this year.
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If people actually did their jobs, no gagging orders would be needed. Some pathetic little jobsworth can mouth off for a few quid to the papers, they'll publish and the olympics look stupid.
I'm british, proud of it, and am delighted the olympics are coming to London. (FYI, I live in West Yorkshire!!). If people stop looking for a story, don't believe the hype from the media and actually look at the facts then by 2012, be prepared for the party of your lives for 2 weeks!!!
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grunny92
I sincerely hope you are able to do your research properly. It shouldn't be a problem talking to the sponsors but it may be harder to talk to individual companies involved in the construction without the permission of the Olympic Delivery Authority.
I would suggest you focus on the sponsors. The Olympics is an interesting subject for sponsors because they do not get the exposure which backers of the World Cup or Premier League receive with advertising in the stadia and on TV. The Olympics has no advertising in the stadia at all. So it's interesting why they do it?
If your school needs a little bit of advice on whom to contact I am happy to point you in the right direction. Good luck.
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It’s of no surprise. The whole thing is going to be such a colossal waste of money that nobody will want us to find out until 6 years after the event, by which time most of the political careers will be over.. Can’t we sell the games to somebody less bankrupt than us. Iceland?
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Maybe it's because the cost of the whole thing is spiralling ever further out of control. There needs to be a lot of media and public attention constantly on the cost of this; we do not want to repeat the mistakes of Montreal in 1976.
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If the media were less sensationalist, almost uniformly negative, frequently inaccurate and short-termist, this sort of thing wouldn't happen. The media are only interested in tomorrow's headline & believe that the only news is bad news. I sympathise with the ODA - until we see some evidence of maturity on behalf of the UK media, why should they not do what they can to avoid being the constant butt of partial, sensationalist criticism (which will briefly turn to jingoist hype for the short period of the actual Games)
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Glasgow786...
It would be even more ironic if Team GB didn't turn up at the London Olympics because of Human Rights and Freedom of Speech issues!!!
As for many of the comments above I have to agree that this is totally unacceptable but that the media's total annihilation of anything British and successful has helped us get to this point. Sure 2012 is going to be expensive, but it will have some benefits and if we promote them correctly, rather than trying to trash them all the time, we might actually be proud to have put the event on.
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Regarding "hushing things up". If you are able to, Adrian, you should look into the real list of accidents at 2012 that never get mentioned. They keep celebrating "million hours worked without a reportable accident". That's not true. There have been accidents there, up to and including hospitalisation. Several members of the ODA Health and Safety team are on an automated accident reporting email group. There are emails there detailing these invisible accidents.
Does the "Freedom of Information act" include requesting accident reports from the HSE?
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'There have been accidents there, up to and including hospitalisation. Several members of the ODA Health and Safety team are on an automated accident reporting email group. There are emails there detailing these invisible accidents.'
And here comes the first mole! Accidents are a fact of life on any building site anywhere in the world. Of course the ODA should not censure that, but if you looked into any infrastructure project anywhere you would unfortunately find accidents happenning even with the most modern safety procedures.
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Gagging orders are a perfectly reasonable contractual obligation to a client and as per usual Adrian is trying to raise his profile by being sensationalist. Flicking through his recent blogs this is becoming somewhat tiresome; BBC Sports Editor Mihir Bose is frankly much more interesting. As Jordan D (comment 8) says, in any case you can get most information from the ODA (that isn’t commercially sensitive) under FOI.
That said, the Olympic organisers could have saved themselves a lot of grief if they’d quoted 2012 outturn figures from the start, although of course for the bid the IOC specifically requested figures for certain elements only at 2004 prices.
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Why is it that this message board is made up mainly of people who want this project to fail?
I know for a fact that LOCOG employees have no such confidentiality clause in their contracts but the ODA need to carefully monitor such things given the media's constant attempts to find a story...Mihir, are you listening!!!. Please treat LOCOG and the ODA as different companies. One government backed, Lottery funded as well by tax payers and whitehall, the other is completely self funded through sponsorship, broadcast rights ticketing and merchandise.
As for the schools, there is an entire dept actively engaging not just with local schools but schools from all over the UK. Get out what you put in is the message here. It isn't perfect but what is? Such a massive high profile event (once in our lifetime) is bound to have it's problems but 3000 people employed on site, soon to be 10,000 many local and previously un-employed and with training to take them beyond the games is a good place to start especially in this economic climate. I don't have rose tinted glasses on but if you don't have the facts at least try to learn what is going on. The 2012 website is a good place to start.
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Adrian, I would appreciate that very much, and if possible interview you and ask yourself some questions?
I can't find an e-mail address to contact you, is it possible you can get mine from the bbc website so I can contact you?
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Comment 19 : gnomefan
"I sympathise with the ODA - until we see some evidence of maturity on behalf of the UK media, why should they not do what they can to avoid being the constant butt of partial, sensationalist criticism"
This is what you are bound to get in a system of discussion that is adversarial. The ODA, in this example, is not geared to present us with a balanced picture of all the consequences of holding the 2012 Olympics in the UK. It's there to acclaim everything positive about the Games, and to minimise, if not completely ignore, the negatives that are inevitable when such a large amount of scarce resources is committed to a project.
But the validity of a project is not just about asserting that it will have positive consequences. It's about establishing that (a) the positives outweigh the negatives and (b) there is no alternative project with greater net benefit that should claim the allocation of the resources. After all, there are positives to be gained from spending billions of pounds building a battleship, but few would argue that this is the best use of the resources involved.
I personally think we'd make much better decisions if we employed a discovery system of discussion, where bodies such as the ODA were expected to present the whole case, rather than just cherry-pick the plusses. Because the media then would be obliged to participate in the discovery, rather than in the rather futile mud-slinging that it is forced into under present methods.
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How many contracts and for what ££ value does the BBC have with confidentiality clauses in them?
Can we please be told?
These contracts were freely signed by the companies involved so whats the problem?
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Grunny92, unounos, and ukkeeper.
Please contact me over your various comments and requests through yourlondon@bbc.co.uk and I can get back to you. I'm very interested in hearing more information on your specific comments.
On other matters: This is a very interesting debate because there are so many different views on what a journalist should do.
There are clearly people here who think that when a journalist finds something out which he or she believes will interest the public and then puts it into the public domain this is somehow mud-slinging or sensationalist.
On this specific story, there was no personal agenda involved here, no desire to constantly report bad news -- just straight-forward investigative journalism.
I discovered that the ODA was issuing unusual confidentiality undertakings. I was told that the clauses in them were particularly harsh. Over a period of two months I worked hard to make sure the details of these allegations were correct.
1) I spoke to companies who had received them and they admitted they were shocked by some of the clauses. (By the way, do they really have a choice whether to sign them in the middle of a recession when getting business is tough?)
2) I showed the clauses to legal experts who agreed that it was excessive to demand access to search offices for evidence of whistleblowers and to demand confidentiality for six years.
3) And I then took the story to a human rights lawyer who says the current Olympic Act already in place raises serious concerns about freedom of speech.
4) I then took the information to the ODA who supplied me with what they said was their corporate contract which did not contain any of these clauses.
I then asked the Shadow Olympics Minister, who is across all aspects of the Olympic project, what he thought about this.
All these views were not put researched overnight. I worked on them carefully and systematically and we did not run the story until we were satisfied all of it was correct.
The views were not coming from me. They came from people involved or from experts who know the law much better than me or many of us.
You have the right to call this sensationalist.
I could, of course, only report on positive things about the Games and be a cheerleader for the next three years.
But I think it is my duty as a journalist to investigate such issues as freedom of speech when experts raise it.
Maybe, as a former foreign corresponent, it is because I have worked in countries such as the former East Germany where it was severely restricted.
I am a great fan of the Olympics. I wouldn't have covered 11 of them if I wasn't. But my job is to make sure London and the UK organises them in a democratic and efficient way.
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Mr. Warner,
I received that last post you made as part of a response from the BBC regarding a complaint about your reporting.
I wish to amke it clear that I think all your reports are valid and all your articles should be reported on, however in all the TV articles and blogs of yours I have read the only positive comment have heard from you is "The stadium construction is racing ahead"
Keep digging and reporting stories such as this, is is crucial that LOCOG, the ODA and the goverment are brought to task on many issues. However I set you a challenge to report on something positive about the games once a week, that shouldn't be to hard should it? Working in grass roots sport I could show you some good things if you want!!
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Adrian,
I'm not totally surprised by the 'gagging' of suppliers.
In sport this has been happening for many years through the National Governing Bodies. These groups have so much power that they can (and do) use this to stop people saying anything 'off message'
You don't hear much complaint about sport management from the big coaches of clubs - why? Because they are funded through the Lottery and the lottery funding is through the NGB's. If you make a fuss then your lottery funding will magically disappear.
Add to this the magic circle of the DCMS, Sport England and the NGB's and no one outside can break in and have a voice.
I found this out the hard way by raising a facilities issue - the loss of over 75% (90+ in London) over 30 years. The response - none, sport England pointed me to the NGB, DCMS quoted Sport England.
Then the figures I was using were rubbished by all three and 'Official' figures given. The media accepted these meekly, even though the BBC had checked and found major discrepancies.
Four months later it turned out, after media interest had waned that the 'Official' figures were totally wrong and the figures that had been rubbished were right - too late.
If we want to develop sport - get rid of the NGB's - make them accountable and for gods sake check what they say.
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I have still to receive an official request, as a UK taxpayer, asking if I would agree to this country spending £9billion on a two jolly for a few hundred people.
Through the august pages of this blog, may I pre-empt the arrival of this communication to respond?
NO. I do not agree to £9billion being spent on the Olympics. You may have £4.5billion and the other £4.5billion will be used to reinvest in business to shore up the UK during and after the Recession.
I, for one, live a long, long way from London (in excess of 300 miles) and as such cannot afford to visit the Games. Yet I am still expected to cough up to pay for them.
This is UNACCEPTABLE.
Either reduce the costs or scrap the Games.
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Can anyone explain why although everyone is gushing over the simple steel stadium design on the news tonight 27.07.09, it looks absolutely nothing like the visuals shown everywhere when we first won it. They were groundbreaking and exciting.
Think of the architecture we saw in china, the birdsnest and incredible swimming venue by world renowned architects. The london stadium now looks like my local sainsburys or B&Q, yet the budget does not reflect this. its still costing 9 billion or something like that! Is this another case of people syphoning off the cash in various ways through pay and bonuses and expenses, under the guise of "value engineering" whilst london is left with a substandard result for years to come?...or am i being cynical...
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