Jowell sets date for budget disclosure

Olympic minister Tessa Jowell has confirmed that the full details of the £9.3billion budget for the London 2012 Games will be made public in January.

Jowell has been criticised by Conservative shadow Olympics minister Hugh Robertson for a "lack of transparency" for failing to provide a detailed breakdown of the costs.

But Jowell said: "I have always been clear that at each stage, when more detailed information within the 2012 budget has been finalised, it will be made public - subject to the need to avoid prejudicing the Olympic Delivery Authority's ongoing commercial negotiations."

She added: "A further and thorough examination of the Authority's baseline budget, as recommended by the National Audit Office in the summer, is now nearing completion.

"Hugh Robertson is aware that the Government intends to present the results of this work to Parliament early in the new year and it is in nobody's interest to continually seek to play party politics with the Olympics."

Robertson claimed Jowell had implicitly admitted the Government and Olympic Board did not know the exact state of the budget.

Robertson said: "As an absolute minimum, the Olympic Board needs an up-to-date budget, a monthly cash-flow and an itemisation of the contingency allocated each time it meets.

"Without this, there is no effective scrutiny and the public can have no confidence that the budget will not spiral," he said.