We really appreciate the investigative reporting carried out by Isle of Wight resident “Retired Hack” exposing the half-hearted attempt by the Isle of Wight council of trying to get the Olympic Torch to the Island – Ed
When we heard in May that the Olympic Torch will not be a stopping point on the Isle of Wight in its trip round Britain, there were plenty of people who thought “so what?”
Islanders, and especially the IW Council, have got better things to spend their time and money on these days, they said.
An astonishing tale of incompetence
Arguably so. But behind the kerfuffle lies an astonishing tale of incompetence and, above all, of economy with the truth which – yet again – leaves the Council with some serious questions to answer.
It was on 18th May that the Torch’s overnight stops were announced. Southampton, Portsmouth and the Channel Islands all got a mention in the itinerary – why not the IW?
John Metcalfe ‘active discussions’ claim
Things moved quite fast that day. By 10am the IW Council’s John Metcalfe, Deputy Director for Economy, Tourism and Leisure, was assuring us all that everything would be fine; that only the overnight stops had been finalised, and the Torch could still come here between two of those stops. “We are in active discussion with the organisers and very much looking forward to hopefully being part of the route when it is announced later this year.”
Several VB contributors smelled a rat. When did these active discussions start, they asked. Not at nine o’clock that morning by any chance?
Mr Metcalfe was asked the question. He took a few days to come back on that one, then said: “In respect to the Torch, we have been liaising with them (LOCOG, the Olympic organisers) ever since we submitted proposals to host the Olympic Torch route by the national deadline in April 2010.”
Freedom of Information request
From experience, the only way to find out what that sort of statement really means is by using the Freedom of Information Act. So a request was made to see all the Council’s relevant internal and external correspondence. The results are illuminating.
The deadline for “hosting” proposals was, as Mr Metcalfe says, April 2010. VB can now publish the document sent in the Council’s name. It becomes more astonishing towards the end.
The actual document submitted
(Did you know? – You can view the document below at full-screen simply by clicking on the left-most graphic, to the right of the Scribd word, on the grey bar at the bottom of each document.)
Completed Route Planning Questionnaire SOUTH Final) – REDACTED
Incomplete application
Something there for everyone, don’t you think? Bear in mind that this is intended for people in London who may never have been to the Island, being asked to weigh our bid against those from all corners of the country.
So, under “Important projects or organisations involved with positive social cohesion and regeneration initiatives”, and with the benefits of Microsoft’s magic expanding text boxes at their disposal, we have “Pan”. Just that, nothing else. Saucepan? Merry pipes of? Well we know what we mean…
Elgar? Well he honeymooned here, never came back. Barrel-scraping department…
Key youth focused programmes or activities? Sorry, can’t think of anything. Everyone around you scribbling away furiously… Go on to the next question… Perhaps come back to this one later… Sorry, time’s up…
Black and minority ethnic communities comment
Less jokingly, we come on to the section headed “Significant Black and minority ethnic communities in your Nation/Region”. Now, there’s certainly a debate to be had about how relevant any of that is to the Island’s hopes of hosting the Olympic Torch. But “95% of the island’s Prison Community are from BME Communities” is (a) untrue (the figure is somewhere around 20 per cent); (b) irrelevant; and (c) in danger of being seen as a joke in very poor taste.
We shall never know what LOCOG said to themselves when this landed on their desk because LOCOG was set up as a private company and isn’t subject to the FOI.
We just know we weren’t selected.
More tomorrow
Tomorrow we’ll publish the second section which will shine a spotlight on exactly how active the “active discussions” were between the council and the Olympic Torch organisers, as IWC claimed back in May.
