Olympics work duplicated due to overstaffing

Work on the 2012 Olympics is being duplicated and held up by bureaucracy because of overstaffing.

Delivery partner CLM has come under fire for employing 350 people to oversee major contracts when it should only have 200.

Games insiders claim the firm and the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) double up on each other and within their organisations.

There are 850 publicly funded officials working on the construction of the Games, with the ODA employing 212 officials.

Councils have almost 50 people working on the Games, while more officials are operating across local and national government on the Olympics.

A consultant on the Olympics told the Guardian: “You wonder what all these officials are doing, and it is very frustrating.

“We have built lots of buildings on time and on budget without all of this rigmarole. There are layers and layers of project management and layers and layers of bureaucracy.

“For example, CLM and the ODA double up, and there is doubling up within those organisations as well.”

According to the newspaper, CLM has 19 staff liaising with contractors and designers on the stadium, four times as many as would be usual on such a job.

The ODA admitted there had been a double-up but it was improving.