2012 Olympics Host City Contract Technical Manuals

Copies of the 2012 Olympics Host City Contract Technical Manuals can be ordered from the Greater London Authority following a successful challenge to the legality of the Mayor of London's withholding of the information under section 41 of the Freedom of Information Act. The GLA had attempted to apply the exemption for 'information provided in confidence'.

The full extent of the Host City Contract obligations had been successfully kept from the public and elected representatives from July 2005 until December 2009.

This exemption cannot be applied to completed contracts entered into by public authorities; nor is it permissible to apply it simply because confidentiality has been requested by another party. There was no evidence that a successful action for breach of confidence could be brought by the IOC, a test necessary for valid use of the exemption. Nor is it legitimate to apply the exemption to trivial information without any obvious 'quality of confidence'.

The Mayor of London breached Information Commissioners guidelines in willingly entering into the Host City Contract in the knowledge that expectations of secrecy would conflict with the requirements of the FOIA.

London Assembly members had been permitted to view specific manuals under secure conditions and after agreeing to the Confidentiality Agreement below - the last clause of which requires the contents of the Confidentiality Undertaking itself to be treated as confidential. Records showed that in 2009 only a single Assembly member had succeeded in viewing one of the manuals.

The Technical Manual on Olympic Games Impact has been added following a Freedom of Information request to the University of East London. The UEL attempted to argue that the manual was exempted from the Act by virtue of its confidentiality, the same argument attempted by the GLA. After a complaint to the ICO the UEL decided to release the document and insisted that this release did not signify a change in its position. The UEL failed to carry out a public interest test and failed to answer any of the other points raised in our complaint. The Olympic Games were a publicly funded project guaranteed by the taxpayer. The UEL was tasked with examining the impacts, a task we do not think it has carried out particularly well! However, the idea that the terms of this examination should be withheld from the public by a publicly funded university examining a publicly funded project promoted by an international body which claims to be operating in the public interest is extraordinary and the idea that those who want to see this document have to complain to the ICO to get a sight of it is also extraordinary.

IOC Technical Manual on Olympic Games Impact

Attachment	Size
GLA 2012 Olympics Host City Technical Manuals Confidentiality Undertaking.pdf	107.81 KB

Submitted by Charles Batsworth on Fri, 26/03/2010 - 12:15.

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