Discover your council’s Torch Relay spending – and help find out more

Olympic Torch Relay Spending Database

We’re opening up our database of £4m of spending based on FOI request responses from 100 local councils and police authorities.

As we reported last week, the responses contain some interesting budget decisions – from a specific staff position in one authority lasting 18 months to the excessive cost of bunting. What can you find in the figures?

Here are just some more that we’ve found:

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Why did a cafe owner receive a visit from a counter terrorism unit?

Mrs Angry is the publisher of Broken Barnet. In this guest post she describes how a local shopkeeper and parking campaigner received a visit from the counter terrorism squad.

Helen Michael is a cafe owner in North Finchley. As the spokeswoman for local businesses in the area Helen had taken a prominent part in campaigns to fight a new parking scheme, including designing, printing and distributing a poster blaming local Conservative politician Brian Coleman for a number of shops alleged to have closed as a result of the parking changes.

Helen Michael

After a complaint from a political agent, local police visited Helen and pointed out that she had broken the law by failing to publish her details on the poster.

She immediately took steps to amend this oversight, and the police assured her there would be no further action.

But many weeks later towards the end of June Helen was surprised to receive a second visit from two more police officers. These policemen informed her that they were from a special investigations unit at Scotland Yard that dealt with all sorts of things, including counter terrorism.

They wanted to talk to her about the poster, even though she had been told the matter was at an end by local police.

She was obliged to attend a two hour recorded interview at a local station, under caution, asked a bewildering series of questions such as:

  • “Was it just the traders of Barnet involved in the production of this poster?”
  • “How much did it cost to produce the poster?”
  • “Was the cost funded by the local traders?”
  • “Was the poster for and on behalf of the traders, did we discuss it, with whom, what about the pictures? Was it a culmination of ideas or my own?”
  • “If the poster was not an election publication what was the principal reason to produce the poster?”
  • “Was there any political input or intention in production of the poster?”

A brief investigation proved that the two detectives were from SO15, a counter terrorism unit. Continue reading

The experience of the torchbearer – and the executives who carried the Olympic torch on just one day – 8,000 Holes part 5

Get the free ebook for the full story: 8,000 Holes: How the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay Lost its Way - Leanpub.com/8000holes

In the final part of the serialisation of Help Me Investigate’s first ebook – 8,000 Holes: How the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay Lost its Way we look at how the story affected one inspirational individual who did carry the torch – and the executives who carried the torch on the day the torch passed through Jack Binstead’s borough. You can download the book for free – or choose to pay a donation, with all proceeds going to the Brittle Bone Society – at Leanpub.com/8000holes

Part 5: 8,000 Holes

In June 2011, when the design for the official Olympic torch was unveiled, the Chair of LOCOG Sebastian Coe had said:

“The Torch that carries the Olympic Flame during the Olympic Torch Relay is one of the most recognisable and significant symbols of an Olympic Games. Members of the public right across the UK are busy nominating inspiring people to be Torchbearers and I am thrilled we have a beautifully designed, engineered and crafted Torch for them to carry.

“Integral to the design are the 8,000 circles, a lasting representation of the Torchbearer stories of personal achievement or contribution to their local community that will be showcased with every step of the Relay.”

But too many of those 8,000 circles turned out to be merely holes where local heroes should have been. The “message of inclusion” which the torch was supposed to represent had been replaced with a repeated message of exclusion. At almost every point where places were split up, a proportion was siphoned for allocation through non-public processes, whether the 15% of Lloyds TSB places for staff; the 10% of Samsung’s places; Coca Cola’s nomination judges carrying the torch as Future Flames, or the corporate partners who rewarded board members and business partners. Continue reading

How the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay lost its way part 2: The presenting partners

Get the free ebook for the full story: 8,000 Holes: How the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay Lost its Way - Leanpub.com/8000holes

In the second part of a serialisation of Help Me Investigate’s first ebook – 8,000 Holes: How the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay Lost its Way we look at how the presenting partners’ allocation of torchbearer places was handled. You can download the book for free – or choose to pay a donation, with all proceeds going to the Brittle Bone Society – at Leanpub.com/8000holes

Part 2: Getting your money’s worth

Once the Presenting Partners were able to start awarding torchbearer places, each handled their allocation differently.

As the only national presenting partner, Lloyds TSB allocated their places through two UK-wide campaigns: one through Lloyds TSB itself, and another through Bank of Scotland. The bank said they would give the opportunity to “people who have made a difference in their community”.

An analysis of the data on both banks’ official torchbearer sites, however, finds almost 500 of their 1,360 places unaccounted for, and when pressed, the bank admits that: Continue reading

How the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay lost its way part 1: Jack Binstead’s story

Get the free ebook for the full story: 8,000 Holes: How the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay Lost its Way - Leanpub.com/8000holes

This is the first part of a serialisation of Help Me Investigate’s first ebook – 8,000 Holes: How the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay Lost its Way. You can download the book for free – or choose to pay a donation, with all proceeds going to the Brittle Bone Society – at Leanpub.com/8000holes

Part 1: Where did the torchbearer places go?

Jack Binstead is one of the UK’s most promising young athletes: a wheelchair racer in with a chance of competing in the next Paralympic Games. Born with brittle bone disease he has, says his mother Penny, broken 64 bones in his body over just 15 years.

“At the age of nine he was a very down young boy,” she explains. “He was very overweight – he didn’t know which way to go. But when he went to a taster session for children with special needs, the borough’s Head of Sports saw in Jack that he would be good at wheelchair racing. He recommended that Jack try wheelchair racing at a local track in Kingston called Kingsmeadow.”

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New details in ebook from HMIO: How the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay Lost its Way

8000 Holes - book cover

As the Olympic Torch Relay enters its final week we are today publishing Help Me Investigate’s first ebook8,000 Holes: How the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay Lost its Way.

A longform report, the book details how the 8,000 torchbearer places were allocated – and how that process made it impossible for Olympic torch relay organisers LOCOG to meet key promises about the numbers of places available to the public, and to young people.

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Is this Olympic torchbearer another Aggreko director?

Philippe Boisaubert carried the torch in Hull with no nomination story. Could it be the same Philipp Boisaubert listed as Managing Director, Continental Europe? His profile on Viadeo lists his home town as Sucy en Brie – the same as that of the mystery torchbearer.

We previously reported on four out of seven executive board members from the company carrying the torch – as well as the chief executive’s PA.

Argus investigates Olympic torchbearers in Sussex

The Argus reports on corporate torchbearers in Sussex

The Argus reports on corporate torchbearers in Sussex

The Argus in Sussex is the latest newspaper to ask questions of the allocation of Olympic torch relay places: “between the charity fundraisers, world record holders and people who have dedicated their lives to helping others,” reports Tim Ridgway and Charlotte Pemberton, “there will be Olympic officials and representatives from multinational corporations who live abroad. This despite organisers promising it would “enable local communities to shine a light on the best their area has to offer”.”

The Argus report comes on the heels of yesterday’s investigation by the Daily Echo in Bournemouth and Help Me Investigate’s work on the subject last month.

Among torchbearers identified by the newspaper are: Continue reading