Olympic firm's £10m bonus ... for keeping cost down

The organisation in charge of keeping the costs of the 2012 Olympics down is to receive a £10 million bonus in recognition of its success.

The performance-related payout to consortium CLM was revealed in the latest breakdown of the £9.3 billion Games budget, published by the Government to provide transparency on costs.

It takes the budget for managing the project up to £647 million, a dramatic increase from the initial £16 million figure quoted when London won the bid in 2005.

Today the Tories said the new fees were another example of how the event's costs were spiralling out of control.

Their attack came as Tessa Jowell, the Olympics minister, confirmed that £500 million of the £2.2 billion contingency fund earmarked for the Olympic Delivery Authority would be used to meet "the costs pressures on early projects".

Hugh Robertson, the shadow Olympics minister, told the Financial Times: "On a day when the Government admitted the £500 million for contingency has already been absorbed into the budget, it seems curious to pay the delivery partner a bonus for keeping the costs down."

But the Department for Culture Media and Sport defended the fee saying: "It's spend to save."

In March Ms Jowell announced the tripling of the Olympics budget to £9.3 billion.

Government officials this week said they were confident the project could be completed within the revised figure.