Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120
- 137)
TUESDAY 21 NOVEMBER 2006
MS JULIA
BRACEWELL, MR
STEPHEN CASTLE
AND MS
JULIET WILLIAMS
Q120 Alan Keen: I will not dwell
on this because we have got so much to cover. I have argued less
strongly before we were awarded the Olympics than I will argue
afterwards: I think we need to learn lessons. I cannot see that
it is going to be held in nations with fewer resources than we
have got, ever, in the future. I think that is caused by the IOC
demanding that the village is within half a mile of the main centre,
and it is a city Olympics rather than a national thing. Very quickly,
would you not be happier if Scotland were actually hosting part
of the Games than just looking for people to come and train with
you? Without any extra cost, what part of the Games could you
have hosted had it been not a London Games but a national Games?
Ms Bracewell: We are already hosting
some of the football matches at Hampden.
Q121 Alan Keen: I am talking about
the other stuff. I would not argue about the football.
Ms Bracewell: Ultimately the IOC
want a City bid and therefore we are happier that for us the way
the Scots are going to take part is as athletes and volunteers.
Q122 Alan Keen: I know you have to
say that. I am asking what events could you have hosted in your
regions without having to spend any extra money, apart from a
few coats of paint?
Ms Bracewell: All we are doing
is going flat-out for the 2014 Commonwealth Games. I am going
to dodge that one!
Alan Keen: I expected you to!
Q123 Janet Anderson: Turning to tourism—there
are various different estimates of the financial benefit that
is likely to accrue as a result of the Games. The Tourism Alliance
has in fact said that they think "most inbound Olympics-related
tourism will be in substitution for leisure and business tourism
that would otherwise occur". I wonder if I could ask all
three of you whether you think that is correct, or whether there
will be additional benefits and whether they will be during the
Games themselves or post the Games?
Ms Williams: In many respects
I think it is up to us in the preparations that we actually make.
I think over previous Games there have been a huge raft of very
different kinds of experiences in terms of tourism and the whole
visitor economy. What it does tend to do, of course, is to provoke
different kinds of experiences and behaviours even within the
domestic market as much as it does within the international market.
What we have done is to go about this in a sense by actually including
tourism. The Chief Executive of VisitBritain sits with us on the
Nations and Regions Group. The strategy for tourism for 2012 has
gone through a really robust consultation process so that we have
all had the opportunity to input into it, to give it the kind
of substance that in the beginning looks at the whole welcome
that we may have the opportunity to give; cleaning up our act
very often in terms of points of entry, like airports, stations
and so on and so forth; but actually taking on board the quality
agenda; promoting the kind of skills opportunity and skills development
opportunities within tourism to create a better and more robust
product that then will have greater resonance with those incoming
visitors overseas. I think in terms of the numbers themselves
it is really quite difficult for us to make any particular projections
at this particular point in time. I think the key issue is that
the whole visitor experience will be underpinned by a really robust
strategy, and the kind of action into which all of us buy in rather
than necessarily just the tourist industry itself.
Q124 Janet Anderson: In the South
West will you have additional visitors as a result of the Games?
Ms Williams: I think perhaps as
a region we might be in a slightly different position because
we do have the sailing events at Weymouth. I do see us attracting
sailors to those waters that have a good reputation for sailing
anyway. What I would like to feel is that London is a gateway
to the South West, as much as it is to other regions of Britain.
I think it is up to us to promote it as such so that visitors
see what we have to offer outside the M25. If you like, it is
an extension to the kind of stay of those who actually come to
the Games but that the welcome is the same throughout.
Q125 Janet Anderson: I think your
point about the gateway is very interesting, because the Mayor
of London of course has a responsibility to promote London as
a gateway and always has. Stephen and Julia, what do you think?
Mr Castle: Certainly from the
East of England's perspective we would see the gateway issue to
be very important, not only in terms of gateways to London through
the regions—Stansted Airport and our port facilities, and
we will be seeing a lot of people coming through those gateway
access points into the UK—but the challenge for us is to
say, "This isn't London Stansted, this is Stansted Airport
which is in the East of England, based in Essex, and we would
like you to turn right as well as turning left down the M11 to
see and understand what the rest of the region has got".
I think we see it very much as an opportunity to use the Games
as a shop window, particularly for parts of the region that perhaps
have not quite as good a reputation as we would like, and I am
thinking of John and my home county in that sense, where parts
occasionally suffer in people's perceptions. There is an opportunity
there with 20,000 journalists being based there to sell the beautiful
parts of Essex that John comes from and, indeed, the rest of the
region. I think we see it also as an opportunity for business
tourism, again touching the gateway, around the Thames Gateway.
That is hugely important for our region and the opportunity to
attract business travel, to put the Thames Gateway on the map
as gateway to the Olympics. I think this is a real opportunity.
We see a number of different areas and share some of the issues
Juliet has got but, as much as anything, it is about using it
as a window.
Ms Bracewell: For us it is very
much looking at the four years of the Olympiad, starting in 2008
and then going right through to the years afterwards. With the
London Olympic Games how does that reposition and remarket Britain
overseas? What you would hope is that we are trying to increase
our tourism revenues by 50% by 2015 so we are saying this is a
long-term strategy whereby, as Britain gets replaced overseas
with an image of being dynamic, a great place for the youth to
come and things like that, we would hope again we are able to
market Scotland in that way to increase visitor numbers across
the whole thing, not just the six weeks that the Games are running.
Certainly over the six weeks of the Games, having gone to the
Olympic Games, you can get fatigued by it all. We would hope that
people would be quite happy to come up to the Edinburgh Festival,
which would be happening round about that time as well. During
the Games there might well be a chance for people to go and do
other bits, but the real gain will be how to use the Olympics
over that eight-year period to do something really fundamental.
Q126 Janet Anderson: Your point about
the Olympic procedures is interesting, because do you think that
some potential visitors will actually be put off and might think,
"Oh God, it's going to be overrun by Olympic visitors so
I'm going to go somewhere else this year"? Do you think that
is a likely effect?
Ms Williams: I am absolutely sure
that that is a potential effect. I think it depends on the way
in which a) we promote ourselves nationally to the incoming public
to make sure there is an extension of stay; and b) there are other
parts of England outside London. I think it is how we promote
and market the message. But we must make sure that the country
as a whole is providing the welcome regardless of where the gateway
is?.
Q127 Janet Anderson: Generally, do
all three of you think there will be additional visitors? We are
not talking about just substituting visitors who would have come
anyway?
Mr Castle: The evidence of previous
Games is that during the Games period that is questionable. As
Julia has emphasised, over a longer period I think there is an
opportunity for additional visitors.
Ms Bracewell: Look at Barcelona—I
was lucky to be out there last week—tourism increased significantly
after the Games. You have a six-week TV commercial for Britain
going out and people around the world. As they look at their TV
screens to watch events, they are going to see some of the sorts
of footage that was shown around Athens showing beautiful pictures
of the country. There is a big advertising opportunity for us,
as well as people going back and saying, "I had a fantastic
time". Allied with strategic marketing, I would hope we do
get an increase in visitors.
Q128 Mr Hall: From evidence that
we have received already and from what you have mentioned this
morning it looks like you have reached a firm conclusion that
there will not be many competitor nations in 2012 requiring pre-training
camps in the UK. What is the basis of that sort of assumption?
Ms Williams: I think it is difficult
for us to ascertain and I think it will take us a couple of years
before we really know. I think there are a few basic premises
we have to adopt—the first of which is that we are in Europe
and not in Australia, which is the point that Julia made; because
a lot of the big teams are close by, but there are those who need
special facilities and special opportunities that we can offer.
I think the opportunity is different. I think what we were meaning
to indicate was that there will be an awful lot of small teams
from other countries who will need hosting as much as they need
facilities; but also there will be the specialist team requirements
as well. In a sense there are two parts to this, but I suggest
that there will be a different map and a different geography,
if you like, perhaps from previous experiences at other Games
simply because of our circumstances.
Mr Castle: I think it is also
true to say it is a moving feast. It is developing and different
teams will look at what we have done as a nation and seen whether
that was successful or not and taken a view as to whether it is
more the kind of activity they want to engage in. Julia was right,
in the past it is has been very much a Team GB area of work but
my sense is that there will be more interest in it. Particularly
with Juliet's point around this issue of single sport teams, more
smaller nations wanting to come and engage and the opportunity
for communities where they have already got strong cultural links
to build on those and to actually be involved in hosting, not
just as a team but perhaps people who are supporting them, people
who are travelling with them, I have heard of one community that
is particularly interested on working on its existing business
links with Korea, for instance, and got some thinking around opportunities
for sponsorship and business that are based within that community
around particular sports that are popular within Korea. It may
not be about hosting a team but what they are thinking about is
how they can build their existing cultural links off the back
of the Olympics into different areas of work.
Q129 Mr Hall: Part of what you are
saying is what we ought to be targeting our market at are event-specific
venues, rather than all-nation training camps?
Ms Bracewell: Correct, I think
that is right. Certainly you could bring three or four countries
over to train in any particular sport around a venue probably
more easily than you could bring a whole country with all its
different teams—I think event-based, geography-based ones,
and the sailing example you have had. I think the opportunity
is to work on which teams you have already got existing links
with. In Scotland obviously we have got international links with
certain countries. If you did it properly you would have the athletes
over and the athletes doing some media training, having some cultural
stuff round about it and the local schools involved learning about
those countries. The benefits for training camps go a lot wider.
Certainly with some of the nations that we bring over during the
course of a year to use our national centres in Scotland, when
they come they have to run open training sessions so any coach
in Scotland can go and watch how these top level teams train and
exchange knowledge in that way. For us the training camps are
not about an economic benefit; they are much more about involving
the community in its widest sense.
Q130 Mr Hall: I think that is a very
important point. We are not looking at this as an economic benefit;
but there is a whole range of other benefits that will come with
it. What about being proactive in the competitive nations and
going to them and saying, "What is it that you actually want?"
You are cataloguing what we have actually got, but what about
asking them what they want?
Mr Castle: Part of the work we
are doing around that cataloguing process is talking to national
governing bodies and NOCs and finding out what kind of facilities
they do need and what would they like to see in terms of preparation
camps. That is being dealt with nationally. I think the political
issue your colleague Mr Keen was referencing is that we do not
want too many people running around independently trying to build
those links and, therefore, dropping outside of the ability of
us to have a single UK offer; and also not necessarily being able
to understand what it is that visiting teams actually need. That
work is certainly going on at a local level, and that is part
of the preparation camp process that both Julia and Juliet describe.
Ms Williams: The research has
been well managed.
Q131 Philip Davies: The ODA procurement
is apparently going to start in early 2007, which is not that
far away. Are you confident that businesses in all parts of the
UK have got all the information to hand and are aware of all the
opportunities of providing goods and services so they can submit
tenders in good time; or are they going to miss the boat?
Ms Bracewell: I have no doubt
that businesses will not miss the boat. I think we have all handled
businesses slightly differently. A few things just to put this
into context: LOCOG has set up a one-stop shop, the 2012 website,
so any business that wants to register for regular e-mails on
what is happening, to learn about the procurement process, they
can do that today to get information directly from LOCOG. Obviously
back in the regions and the nations, Scottish Enterprise for us,
the RDAs for others, are working with businesses as well. The
second aim is to set up a business opportunities network which
will do a number of different things. Where going down the supply
chain you might have a small business that could work better with
another one, you put them in touch so that they can go and deliver
a service together. What we obviously have to do is to build up
the support services and networks to make businesses which are
not fit for purpose get fit for purpose so that they can tender
and win contracts. I think the whole business thing is going to
be quite interesting because it is going to drive a sea change
in the way businesses do business. For me, in Scotland we have
had great success for the three companies who were supplying LOCOG
prior to the bid: High Fly, Navy Blue, who did all the documents,
and Pagoda, who did communications work, have all reported increases
in revenues and new businesses opportunities. Navy Blue, for example,
has accessed markets in the US and the Middle East that it would
not have done without having got the international exposure it
did from working on the LOCOG bid. When success stories like that
get out at the appropriate time then other businesses will come
on. We have set up conferences for next year because we think
in Scotland by then we will know more about the procurement strategy;
we will know more about the timetables; and then we will be able
to help our businesses get in. I think there is still time and
I do not think they are going to miss the boat at all.
Ms Williams: I think we have taken
a slightly different view, in the sense that we have a large number
of small to medium-sized enterprises in the South West. What we
have encouraged them to do is look to using the Olympics as a
catalyst to the improvement of their own performance. For example,
we have research and development in composite structures for the
aerospace industry and we are using the 2012 opportunity and sailing
in the South West to make sure those are introduced on a much
broader scale to the marine and maritime industry so there is
a better use of resources and the building of relationships between
various business sectors which, in a sense, perhaps also develops
what we were saying to Adrian a while ago. It is the view that
we have taken because we see that as a more immediate impact than
we can actually give our businesses.
Mr Castle: It is fair that there
has been some anxiety, particularly around small businesses, that
they might be missing the boat. Certainly a lot of the work we
have been doing, and I have described some of the meetings I have
addressed in your Chairman's constituency and have talked to some
600 businesses over the last six months, it is really about helping
them understand the structures coming forward, and indeed pick
up this idea that their Olympic legacy may not be supplying into
the Games, but it might be about becoming fit for purpose for
future Government contracts. There is a lot of interest and excitement
around this.
Q132 Philip Davies: Have you set
any targets for how much of the Olympic procurement will be taken
up by businesses in the nations and regions? Have you any idea
of how much we can expect to see?
Mr Castle: I think each of the
nations and regions have probably got their own target. How much
of that is around what is either deliverable or is perhaps ambitious
I do not know. In the East of England we are looking at 10%, but
I suspect all of my colleagues have probably got similar figures.
Ms Williams: I suspect that it
will have a lot more to do, to be honest with you, with geography
and the sectors that each part of the country happens to major
in. I think they will be different for us. We do not expect a
large percentage. Actually I would imagine that perhaps some of
our large corporates might be involved in terms of not just the
construction and development of the Games but also perhaps in
sponsorship and so on. Certainly what we have done is taken much
more trouble to work with the vast raft of small to medium sized
businesses to make them, as Stephen says, much more fit for purpose.
Q133 Philip Davies: On a slightly
different subject, are you receiving any feedback at all that
the protection of the Olympic symbol and the thing they have set
up to stop this ambush marketing is having any impact on local
authorities or local organisations in terms of benefiting and
promoting the Olympics?
Mr Castle: The issue around branding
and the association with branding I think is one of the most important
issues for us to tackle in terms of delivering benefits of the
Games outside of London. On the one hand I think we are all absolutely
focused on the fact that protecting the Olympic brand and the
revenue that is derived from that is actually critical for us
to be able to deliver the kind of Games we have talked about.
I think everybody understands that the way in which the key sponsors
are involved in that, and the protection of their interests in
that, is critical to the future viability of the Games and in
particular 2012. On the other hand, we have a very sophisticated
and deep civic society here where there is a real opportunity,
and perhaps in a fairly unique way, to drive the benefits nationally.
In order to do that there has to be some association with the
Games themselves. You have got these two competing tensions around
the branding issue. I have recently been doing some work with
the guys who are looking at branding at LOCOG and I have been
very impressed with the work that they have done so far. If they
are able to deliver, I think the access to a brand that provides
association to local government in particular but also to the
voluntary sector in the way they are describing, then it is going
to be unique and it will set a new template for handling brands
around the Olympics. I think it is quite a big leap for the IOC
to actually agree to that, but the reality is that these Games
were sold on the fact that it was about a legacy that would reach
right out into the community on a lasting basis. If we are to
do that, and in particular local government and the voluntary
sector are to play their part in delivering that lasting legacy,
then we have got to find a way of association. As I have said,
the work has gone on and it really is groundbreaking. If the IOC
is prepared to step up to it I think we will move on to a completely
different way with the Olympics in the future in which the brand
is handled and is used and is driven out.
Ms Williams: What we found in
the South West—because we have such a large region, being
the best part of 20% of the land area of England and a large number
of dispersed communities—was that we needed something to
corral the interest across the piece; and in the absence of a
brand, and fully understanding the stance that LOCOG have had
to take in terms of the national brand, we decided to work with
them in order to produce something that would corral interest.
We developed our own brand for the South West's interests in the
Olympics in order that each of the counties and each of the local
authorities could put their own name under the logo itself. That
is now used right across the South West to denote any connection
with our initiative in terms of the buy-in of the region to the
Games.
Q134 Rosemary McKenna: Clearly all
of you are very enthusiastic about getting your part of the country
being involved and benefiting as much as possible from the Olympic
Games, and we are very pleased about that because that was one
of our criteria in the Committee. Can I ask you what is happening
in terms of the Cultural Olympiad? What is being planned in the
nations and regions in terms of the Cultural Olympiad?
Ms Bracewell: What is really interesting
about London is that we have heard already it is the Olympics
doing a number of different things for the first time. The Cultural
Olympiad historically has not been a high part of the Olympics
at all. It has been something which has struggled. There has been
stamp/coin/medal competition, but actually the Cultural Olympiad
itself has not been a huge thing; whereas London set out its stall
very early that they are looking at it from the time that flag
gets handed over in 2008 in Beijing, and there is a three-tier
approach to culture. We were very fortunate, as were all the nations
and regions, Bill Morris, recently appointed to LOCOG as Head
of Culture, Education and Ceremonies, has done a tour of all the
nations and regions and has brought together all the arts and
cultural bodies. For us it was great in Scotland because we again
had cross-working happening all of a sudden; the museums saying,
"We can run sporting exhibitions for the year going into
the Games, during and the year after" which has not happened
before. The idea of having live sites around the country with
cultural activities round about that will be something new for
the Olympic Games as well. I think there is a lot going on around
the Cultural Olympiad, and we have certainly been really pleased
to be involved in that; and be involved early enough to plan it—because
a lot of the cultural activities, the museums, they need four
or five years to plan this. We are actually at the right point
to be engaging them. If it was left any later we might have wanted
to do it but been unable to do it.
Mr Castle: I think it is also
important to remember, picking up Adrian's comments earlier about
the "usual suspects", within the various regional groups
culture is very much embedded. The Regional Cultural Consortium
are one of the key partners, and we have an arts culture strand
within the work we do in Essex as well. There has been an engagement
from the point that London was successful in Singapore, and indeed
frankly before that during the bid phase of the various cultural
organisations.
Ms Williams: The same thing is
very much true in the South West. The cultural consortium is very
much part of our wider advisory board. Our initiatives certainly
come as much from them as much as it does from anybody else. In
fact I am sure you will remember the Eden Project in Cornwall
was very much a part of the bid going forward; and we have already
started to have the kind of events there that are starting to
build participation particularly amongst the wider community.
The ideas are starting to come forward and what we are looking
at is potentially developing a decade of culture.
Q135 Rosemary McKenna: The MLA has
indicated that there is a concern about local authorities funding
the museums and galleries etc. Is that a genuine concern? Is there
any evidence to suggest the local authorities will be reluctant
to do that?
Ms Bracewell: Certainly what we
have done in Scotland is, by being able to plan this far ahead,
work with all the national agencies and ask them to look at: what
are your priorities going to be during that time; is there a budget
you have already got you could use in this way? This becomes a
big theme. We are still at the stage where we are planning and
working it all out to work out what the costs would be and whether
they are met by national agencies, local authorities or whoever.
I think we have got time to try and figure that one out.
Q136 Rosemary McKenna: If they work
out their strategy it does not necessarily have to mean that they
have to put in a lot of additional money but that they skew their
strategy?
Mr Castle: I think one of the
critical principles certainly in the East of England we have always
engaged in as far as the Games are concerned is that it is not
necessarily about doing lots of new things; it is about achieving
existing targets and priorities and using the Games, as Julia
described, as the "magic dust" to try and actually accelerate
the delivery of some of these existing priorities. From my own
experience of my own local authority, the museums and libraries
have been very involved and very engaged as part of our communications
plan; but it is actually about how the relationship between the
libraries, for instances, changes with the community anyway; and
they have been part of the bid phase.
Q137 Mr Sanders: A very quick one.
Should not the Cultural Olympiad start the day after the closing
ceremony in Beijing and actually run all the way through? Should
you not be planning that actually this aspect of the Games is
as important as any other; and is the bit that can reach the communities
that cannot be reached in other ways?
Ms Williams: Absolutely. That
is very much the view I think we have taken right across the nations
and regions. It, probably more than anything else, is capable
of touching every last individual in the country. We have certainly
taken that view, and that is the way in which the plans and strategy
for the Olympiad are starting to take shape.
Mr Castle: The work Bill has been
doing, which is knitting together the work that had already been
occurring in terms of the regional cultural consortiums and the
way they have been playing a role within each of the regions,
that agenda is there. I described the fact the Olympics is not
going to start in six years' time; the Olympics start for the
East of England in probably 80 weeks' time once we get the handover
of the flame and the Cultural Olympiad starts. That is just sharpening
people's sense of urgency around it. I have been very impressed
at the way cultural organisations have stepped up to the plate.
Also it is very interesting the way local government have tied
in with that as well. In my own personal experience local authorities
actually say, "How do we take, for instance, linking China
with London, the Beijing Olympics with what is happening in 2012
in this country?" In Essex we have very strong links with
China, so there is a major cultural festival being planned in
Essex off the back of the Beijing Games. Linking that is the local
authority who is taking a very strong lead, working with key cultural
agencies.
Ms Williams: The other thing too
is that the whole visitor economy is something we have to look
at in the round. Certainly as far as tourism is concerned it is
just one element of a much broader picture and us needing to look
at the product offer as it touches the visitor, on the one hand,
and the community provider, on the other. I think there are bridges
to build.
Chairman: Can I thank the three of you
very much. The Committee wishes you every success with your work.
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