WINTER OLYMPICS - JOLLY BILL IS SNOW JOKE

CITY Hall is facing a backlash over plans to send its “events tsar” on an all expenses paid trip to the Winter Olympics in ­Canada.

Tim Owen, assistant director of events, filming and contingency planning at Westminster City Council, is due to fly to Vancouver in February for a four-day trip at a cost of more than £3,000 to the taxpayer.

He has been invited as an official guest of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and London’s Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) to learn from the Canadian city as part of the capital’s preparations as a future host city.

Westminster is the only local authority considering forking out almost £2,000 for a return British Airways air fare (believed to be business class), £300 a night for hotel accommodation and £350 spending money. The total cost to the taxpayer is £3,300 for just three days of scheduled work, one of which is set aside for travelling to the mountains to watch bobsleighing, figure-skating and “Super G” downhill slalom race.

None of the Olympic boroughs – Newham, Hackney, Waltham Forest, Greenwich and Tower Hamlets – are paying for any staff to travel to Vancouver and the Mayor of London’s office is sending only two representatives. Given the differences in scale of the two events, the borough’s peripheral role in the 2012 games and the backdrop of mass council employee sackings, questions are being asked as to the need for the trip.

London Assembly member Murad Qureshi, who paid for his own trip to China to research the Beijing Olympics in 2008, said it was “staggering” Westminster Council was considering funding the trip. Mr Qureshi said: “I can’t see how this benefits Westminster Council at all.

The two events are completely different. Vancouver is a much smaller city, the event itself is a winter event and therefore much smaller than the summer Olympics which is on a global scale, and no other local authorities are going. Sure, a lot of people will stay in Westminster but it will be mainly in east London. I think they have delusions of grandeur to even consider it. It’s absolutely staggering.”

Leader of the Labour group in Westminster City Hall Cllr Paul Dimoldenberg said: “It is crazy for the council to be sending someone to the Winter Olympics when there is a £20million black hole in the council’s finances. Over the next few months hundreds of council employees will be told that they have no longer got a job while one of their colleagues jets off to the Winter Olympics on a ‘fact-finding mission’. Have the Conservatives gone completely mad?” The wider Vancouver population is around two million, compared with just short of nine million in Greater London.

While the current cost of the Winter Olympics is around the £900m mark, the forecast cost of the London games is well over £3bn. An internal council report has recommended Mr Owen joins the “observer programme” adding: “The observer programme is a unique opportunity to assess our progress against the one remaining Olympic Games before London in 2012 and to observe organisational readiness for a city environment with similar challenges facing London.”

A spokeswoman for the council said a decision would be made in the next two weeks. The fortnight-long Winter Olympics begins on February 13.

JAMIE WELHAM