This is Anne McCubbin talking with Carolyn Smith about our report on the Commonwealth Games 2014. It’s a progress report on planning for the delivery of the Games that will be held in Glasgow.

Carolyn, what does your report look at?

The report’s the first in a series of reports that look at the planning for the Games. This one’s taken an early assessment of the arrangements that the partners are putting in place to manage and deliver the Games. This includes their approach to monitoring and controlling  costs and managing the risks.

What are the main findings in the report?

It’s just under five years to go until this major event and the organisers are making progress in key areas. They still have much to do. It’s a complex project and therefore detailed planning is crucial. 

Our report highlighted that the budget might not be enough. This was the top risk and we’ve already seen it go up by £81 million this week. As public finances are already under pressure it’s essential that the organisers manage all the risks, including keeping tight control over costs.

What are the recommendations in the report?

We’ve made a number of individual and joint recommendations for the organisers, and we’d like to see them accepting and implementing them.

Our recommendations cover areas such as improving their planning, by pulling together an overall plan for this complex project and being clearer on how they’re managing their responsibilities, particularly those tasks that they’re jointly responsible for. We’d also like to see them regularly review the budget assumptions and continue to look at ways of making savings.

The report highlights the risks in this really complex major project. Could you just tell us a bit more about those risks….

The top risk that we highlighted in the report was around the budget. Now we’ve already seen the budget go up by around £81 million this week. And there are still some risks that that could increase even further. There are particularly issues around trying to raise the private sector funding that’s needed, especially in this economic climate.

Also some of the early estimates that were made for the venues and other infrastructure projects were made at really early stages and so might not be realistic in the long term. For instance we’ve seen that with the national indoor sports arena and the Velodrome projects already looking as if it’s coming in at over £16 million over budget. That was due to some design changes and inflation. So all of these risks around the budget need to be managed.

There are also risks around some of the wider planning for the Games. All of the partners are doing different things and need to coordinate their various plans to make sure that they pull together and there are no gaps, such as with one partner thinking another partner is doing a task but neither doling this. It’s important that they coordinate the tasks and make sure they’re done in the right order as well. For instance, if a road needs to be dug up for utilities then they should only need to do that once. 

There’s also a risk around the workforce. Particularly the risk of losing knowledge if key staff leave. All the partners should have plans in place to manage that risk, as they should for all of the other risks. 

How does the planning for these Games compare with similar events, such as the London Olympics?
I think it’s difficult to directly compare the progress with planning for these Games to other similar events. One of the reasons for that is the lack of information available on the timescales for when previous Games completed key tasks. They are also all at different starting points and they have different political and cultural arrangements to consider. That means their planning needs to reflect their specific circumstances. But I think it’s also important to highlight that the Commonwealth Games Federation is satisfied so far with the progress being made by the Glasgow Organising Committee and its partners. 

The cost of these Games has already gone up by £81 million, how does the budget overrun here compare with similar events?

The experience with major events like as this is that there are often significant cost overruns. For example the Manchester Commonwealth Games in 2002 increased by about 120%. Delhi’s Commonwealth Games, to be held in 2010, are forecasting around a 280% increase on the budget. And the forecasted increase on the budget for the London Olympics in 2012 is currently about 300%.

So Glasgow’s increase of 22% compares with other events such as this. Although I think it’s important to highlight that the Glasgow Games are earlier on in the planning stage, and it’s very important that they get in place arrangements to properly control and manage the budget and keep a tight rein on the cost now.

Finally, just thinking about Audit Scotland’s role in this, what’s Audit Scotland going to be doing to follow up this report?

This is the first in a series of reports we’re producing on planning for the Games. We haven’t set a date for the next report yet. But in the future we will be looking at the budget, particularly comparing the current estimate with the updated estimate and looking at whether appropriate controls have been put in place to manage and control that budget. 

We’ll also be looking at arrangements for planning a legacy from the Games.

Carolyn, thanks very much.