Inside Out

Tony Blair at the 'One Year On' celebration

Titled 'Project GAB'  (A campaign to get the Agenda Back) it outlines worries over the budget , the legacy and political interference and warns they need to "Agree the budget/funding and announce it as soon as possible. Until this is done few other activities will get real traction."

If games insiders are now admitting they're facing difficulties, experts on the outside say the problems have just begun.

Dr Will Jennings from the Centre for Risk and Regulation tells Inside Out that the original £2.4 billion estimate for London's Olympics was "a significant underestimate… and I think that people at that time would have thought that too."

He says he believes the final bill will be between £6-8 billion pounds.

True cost

Professor Tony Travers from the London School of Economics says: "I think we can be sure that there are periods of panic, particularly when questions of the cost of the Olympic get into the news. In between those, periods of deep introspection as people rush around from department to department trying to get a sense of what's really going on.

"It won't just be us out here who are unaware of this, I think deep within the Treasury they can have no idea what this will really finally cost."

He tells Inside Out he believes the true cost will be between £8-10 billion.

The programme also reveals doubts over Tessa Jowell's claim that part of the rising cost of the games is down to steel prices doubling. In fact, industry expert Michael Ankers from the Construction Products Association says steel prices have gone up just 1 per cent since London's bid was submitted.

Inconceivable

Inside Out hears from the MP who was told three years ago in a written parliamentary answer that VAT would have to be paid on Olympic buildings. That answer came from Ruth Kelly who was then a Treasury minister, to Conservative MP for Wealden, Charles Hendry.

He tells the programme, "It's inconceivable that somebody in the DCMS, the culture media and sport department didn't pick this up and make ministers aware of it. It is just inconceivable they didn't know this was the case." VAT of course was never added to the bid cost.

So as the government continues to work out the budget for London's 2012 Games and who’s going to pick up the bill, BBC London's Inside Out asks 'What is the Real Cost of the games'.

Watch the Inside Out Olympic Special on BBC1 on Friday February 2 at 7.30pm