 The new report, Preparing for success at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and beyond, acknowledges that the DCMS (Department for Culture, Media & Sport) and in particular UK Sport have acted positively on previous recommendations made by the Committee of Public Accounts in laying emphasis on those sports and athletes most likely to win medals and by putting in place appropriate measures for the evaluation of their performance.
But the NAO also points to UK Sports' failure as yet to agree targets with individual sports; and it expresses concern about the lack of speed employed by the DCMS in not putting out a tender for a fundraising partner until November last year.
Risk
One possible consequence of this tardiness is that insufficient sponsorship funding will be generated, says the report: "In November 2007, the Department went to tender for a fundraising partner. There remains a risk that, especially in view of the many demands for private sponsorship to fund aspects of the London 2012 Games, the objective of raising all this money will not be achievable".
The £100m target constitutes 17% of a £700m package of support for elite athletes agreed by the government to fund elite sport over the period April 2006 to March 2013, to be sourced from the Exchequer, the National Lottery and private sponsorship. Direct funding to be provided by the national governing bodies of sports and elite athletes from UK Sport, via its World Class Performance programme, now amounts to £600m.
But the NAO report queries whether the £100m will
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indeed materialise - or if it does whether it will arrive too late to have the required effect.
It recommends that the DCMS should work with its consultant, Fast Track, "to produce an early assessment of the feasibility of raising £100m from the private sector" and "develop an action plan to test the willingness of potential donors and, in time to inform funding decisions for the start of the 2012 Olympic cycle, should make an estimate of what private sector funding it expects to be made available and in what time frame".
Ominous
And, whilst recognising the 'contingency plans' already put in place by UK Sport, the NAO report sounds a further, more ominous note: "It is already too late … for UK Sport to protect the full funding it proposes for those sports it expects to win medals in 2012 if the worst case funding scenario should materialise".
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The UK Sponsorship Database
