Press Association repeats Olympic torch relay costs investigation – 3 months after Help Me Investigate

Olympic torch relay costs

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.

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