• Councils count the cost of London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay | This is Somerset – “The investment we made has proven to be worth every penny and we are in no doubt it will leave a lasting legacy,” said a spokesman for the Trowbridge-based unitary council, who added that the publicity for Wiltshire was valued at “£4 million”. Swindon, Gloucestershire and Somerset said they didn’t s
• Lancashire County Council refuses to reveal Olympic torch relay cost (From Burnley and Pendle Citizen) – Nottingham City Council also did not return any sums.
• £6m cost of Olympic Torch relay – BelfastTelegraph.co.uk – England’s largest local councils spent more than £6 million hosting the Olympic Torch for last year’s Games, figures published on the one-year anniversary of the start of the relay show.
• Olympic torch relay’s golden day left town with bill for £53,000 – Manchester Evening News – Nearly £5,000 went on road closures, barriers and signs, around £730 on volunteer costs, £20,000 on advertising and promotion, £3,700 on events staged on the day and £310 on torch bearers’ support. Another £24,598 was spent on staff costs which went into organising the event, although the council say
• £189k taxpayers bill to host Olympic torch relay in Stoke-on-Trent
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• £56k Olympic Torch relay bill for Kirklees council tax payers: Was it worth it? – Local West Yorkshire News – News – Huddersfield Examiner -

The Press Association has picked up on the costs of the Olympic torch relay as it reports on the anniversary of the start of the event

Dozens of regional newspapers across the UK have published the newswire story on the “£6m cost of Olympic torch relay” – first revealed on Help Me Investigate following Freedom of Information requests by contributors including Carol Miers, Juliet Ferguson, Jess Denham and Steve Walker.

The article says that ”figures were obtained by the Press Association under the Freedom of Information Act.”

Help Me Investigate reported on responses to an initial 100 FOI requests in February this year, and published an interactive database of costs with The Guardian in March.

With responses from almost 190 public bodies now in, torch relay expenditure by local authorities for those currently stands at almost £7.9m.

This does not include grants from external public funds such as the Greater London Authority – which provided hundreds of thousands of pounds for official bunting – and arts councils, nor does it include many police authorities.

Contributors to Help Me Investigate are continuing to add further authorities’ spending, while digging deeper into some torch relay-related spending which raised further questions, such as money going to chief executives, the employment of extra staff, spending on extra CCTV, and the use of reserves and environmental budgets.

If you would like more detail on spending in your area, or want to get involved in digging further, please get in touch.

The Stoke Sentinel and Huddersfield Examiner have reported on Freedom of Information requests from Help Me Investigate about torch relay spending.

This is Staffordshire report on the £189,730 cost of the relay to Stoke-on-Trent City Council, while The Huddersfield Daily Examiner’s Linda Whitwam asks “Was [the £56,000 cost] worth it?”

Both flesh out the figures with quotes from participants, spectators and councillors – but little new information about the background to the varying spending figures, or any negotiations with Olympic organisers LOCOG. One new piece of information to emerge, however, is the claim by Stoke-on-Trent Councillor Paul Shotton that the relay “boosted the local economy by £298,000.”

It’s not clear where the cabinet member for commissioning, procurement and finance got the figure from. With 26,000 “attracted onto the streets of the city” according to Shotton, the boost represents a spend of £11.46 per person.

Similar claims have been made elsewhere: Cornwall Council claimed an incredible £3.77million “potential” boost to the economy six months after the event, and Dorset said the relay would give their region a £3million boost.

In contrast, a report by sponsors Lloyds Bank said the Olympic Torch Relay:

“is not estimated to generate any additional expenditure from people lining the torch route, due to its goal of travelling to within 10 miles of 95% of the UK population. However, some of the 66 evening celebrations are likely to attract large crowds who will purchase transport tickets, food, beverages, and souvenirs.

Do you want to help find out how these figures were arrived at?

• Olympic torch to borough cost £10k | HeraldandPost | News | Wellingborough-and-Rushden-News –
• How the Olympic Legacy has affected London’s independent businesses | Independent Everything – A report released by the Federation for Small Businesses in March of this year revealed that 69 per cent of businesses believed the Olympics were good for business, however, 26 per cent of businesses claimed that the Olympics led to a “post-games” negative impact on business. The then Culture Secreta
• What I told the FBI about the FIFA crooks | – Law enforcement sources in New York and Washington confirmed today that they are investigating “a major case” involving allegations of corruption at FIFA. The probe is into allegations of fraud and bribery. It began in the North, Central American and Caribbean regional football confederation but the
• Terrorism arrests rose 60% in year building up to Olympics – The latest official statistics show that 245 people were arrested under counter-terrorism legislation in the 12 months to September 2012 – a 60% increase compared to 153 over the same period 12 months before. And in the three months immediately before the Olympics, the number of terrorism arrests nea
• Sports: Finance: 25 Feb 2013: Hansard Written Answers and Statements – TheyWorkForYou – The Department has not provided any direct financial support to any other sporting events in either (a) 2010, (b) 2011 or (c) 2012. UK Sport is the Government agency responsible for allocating lottery funds, rather than Exchequer funding, to major events and has supported the UK's Major Sports Events

The figure – based on Freedom of Information requests to local councils and police bodies – adds a further £1m to the costs identified based on a survey of 100 authorities in February, and further supports the estimate of a national cost at over £13m.

London boroughs have been added to the bottom line including Hackney, Redbridge, Bromley, Bexley, Newham, Sutton, Hounslow, Richmond upon Thames, Brent, Croydon, Barking and Dagenham, Ealing, Lambeth, Hillingdon, Lewisham, Enfield, Barnet, Kingston upon Thames, Camden, Waltham Forest, and Merton.

Many of these boroughs benefited from grants from the Greater London Authority for bunting, which have been deducted from the final total. Bexley, for example, received £165,900 in grants and sponsorship which have been subtracted from their total of £270,400.

Also added are Midlands authorities Coventry (£45,000), Warwickshire (£79,000), and Leicestershire (£133,000).

Among the spending revealed by the requests are Warwickshire’s appointment of a temporary member of staff at a cost of £25,977, making them the only authority other than Norwich – at a cost of £34,000 - to do so.

Many authorities, including Croydon, billed their staff time as a zero cost, as it was volunteered, although “professional stewarding costs” came to an extra £11,000. Lambeth hired a “Health and safety consultant” at £1,100.

Leicestershire were also unique in spending £103,629 on ‘staffing and overtime” for a rehearsal event.

Richmond upon Thames spent over £24,000 on towaway vehicles, while Barking and Dagenham billed vehicle removal at only £696.

If you want to get involved in investigating the spending – or any other questions across the Help Me Investigate network, get in touch at helpme@helpmeinvestigate.com

We apologise for the error. The original post, and the database, have been corrected.

Aberdeen City Council’s torch relay expenditure can be found here.

Aberdeenshire Council’s funding of torch relay costs can be found here; it is also detailed below.

• Staff Costs £ 5,912.30
• Road Closures/Advertisements etc £ 7,640.67
• Construction Costs £ 4,026.20
• Vehicle Charges £ 1,613.25
• Florescent Vests £ 200.00 (retained for future use)
• Event at Balmoral Castle £ 7,988.62
• Total Cost £27,381.04

Mike Pyle writes that the local council paid £9,000 for the torch’s journey through the area. This covered stewards, barriers, road closures, road signs, St John Ambulance staff, street cleaning and publicity.

Those costs combined came to less than a fifth of the cost of bunting in the area, one of the highest in the country: £50,000 was used from another local government body to fund the decorations.

“The council said it footed a bill of £102,641 when the torch came to the city last July. Most of that, £81,560, was spent on a giant party in Abbey Park, attended by about 20,000 people to celebrate the torch’s arrival.

“The rest was spent on closing the roads, crowd barriers, security, and first aid provision as the torch entourage passed through the city.

“Leicestershire County Council told the Mercury it spent £29,600 on traffic management and staffing as the torch passed through the county in July and during a rehearsal for the relay in April.

“Leicestershire Police said it cost them £103,629 in staffing and overtime to supervise the rehearsal event and the real thing.”

The figures tally with data we’ve published on councils’ spending on the relay. Leicester City Council were one of the biggest spenders in the country.

The figures given to the Mercury, however, omit to mention that the total costs before external funding and income were much higher, at around £150,000. Curiously, the city did not seem to have received any funding from LOCOG for hosting a dress rehearsal for the Olympic organisers.

“Birmingham City Council spent over £16,000 on letters to residents when the Olympic torch relay came through the region – almost as much as it spent on road closures.

“Birmingham’s costs, including £9,000 for security, came to £43,000.

“Neighbouring Walsall spent just under £22,000 on their leg of the relay, despite it spending less than three hours in the region, with security costs coming to £11,000 and a further £2,220 spent on staff overtime.”