Given that Dennis Hone is in charge of making sure everything is ready for next summer’s Olympics, you might expect the stadium and other east London venues to be visible from his twenty-third floor office at Canary Wharf.
Instead, his office overlooks the River Thames and Greenwich Park, where the equestrian events will be held. To see the impressive facilities built by the Olympic Delivery Authority, Hone must walk to the other side of the giant office block that is home to the ODA and the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Locog).
Not that this is much of a problem for either Hone, the ODA’s chief executive, or his colleagues. As things stand, everything appears to be going smoothly, with Locog slowly taking over facilities from the ODA ahead of next July’s opening.
‘Who wouldn’t want this job?’ he tells me. ‘It’s an international project and the eyes of the world are on it. If we deliver well, it’s fantastic for everybody involved. It also shows that, in this country, we can deliver on time and on budget.’
Before he gets too carried away, Hone stresses that there are still risks involved. ‘If the project is not successful, the focus can be a two-edged sword,’ he admits. So how is he feeling? ‘I’m feeling remarkably calm, but I’m always remarkably calm,’ he says.
Although Hone joined the ODA when it was created in 2006 (as director of finance and corporate services), he only moved into the top job last September when David Higgins left to become chief executive of Network Rail.
His background is in regeneration and includes stints at the former London Docklands Development Corporation and the Commission for the New Towns (which merged into English Partnerships). With regeneration budgets squeezed in the public sector, he can count himself fortunate that he is head of an organisation whose success is critical to national prestige and which should provide a lasting legacy in terms of housing and transport, as well as sport.
Hone is quick to praise his 250 staff and the private consortium CLM which, during peak periods, provided up to 800 engineers and construction workers. ‘We’ve created a leadership culture across the park,’ he explains. ‘That’s not about me. It’s really important that people here take responsibility.’
The ODA was not immune to spending cuts – its capital projects budget was pruned from £8bn to £7.2bn. But with 90% of its construction programme now complete, Hone is confident of keeping to the revised budget. ‘The thing that we learnt early on was that if you lose control of time, you lose control of costs,’ he says. ‘If you run out of time, you have to throw resources at it.’
London wants to provide value for money and be the most legacy-conscious Games to date. ‘Seventy-five pence in every £1 that we spent on constructing the Olympic Park is for legacy,’ he says. ‘We have to be responsible for every pound we spend and make sure it has benefits for the future. We don’t want accusations that we frittered money away.’
Designers were challenged to find savings at each venue. This included using less steel than originally envisaged to build the roof at the velodrome, which will stage cycling events.
‘The whole programme is a challenge,’ says Hone. ‘We are constructing something that has to be acceptable for the Games and for legacy. We want it to last for 100 years.’
Compared with Hone’s previous jobs, being chief executive of the ODA easily passes the ‘party test’, he says. ‘When I say we are working on the Olympics, people are fairly interested.’
Naturally this entails fielding requests for tickets, at which point Hone describes how, along with other ODA employees, he took part in the public ballot and paid for any tickets he was allocated. Hence he is looking forward to one night at the athletics (although not the men’s 100 metres final) and a women’s basketball heat, but will receive no preferential treatment during the Games itself.
A CIPFA member, Hone is due to speak about the financing of the games at the institute’s treasury management conference in London on November 3. As well as sharing experiences of the project, he will spell out lessons for the public sector in terms of managing capital finance and large cash flows. ‘While the ODA has a unique task, it is important that we share the lessons learned from this major regeneration project,’ he says.
Some of the numbers surrounding the Games are mind-boggling. The Olympic Park is 2.5 square kilometres – equivalent to London’s Hyde Park – and 8.35 kilometres of waterways are being built in and around it. By next summer, an estimated 30,000 people will have worked on the project.
For the Games itself, 17,500 officials and athletes will descend on London, most of them living in 11 residential blocks in the Olympic Village. Following the Games, the 2,800 apartments will be sold privately, or let by housing associations.
Most of the work that remains to be done involves landscaping, although the water polo arena and main paralympic venue have still to be completed.
Hone visits the park regularly to check on progress and show visitors around. Again, he looks satisfied, but not complacent. ‘If you had told me that we would be in this position [now] at the outset, I would gladly have accepted it,’ he says.
By next summer, the ODA will be slightly leaner, with some staff switching to Locog. About 200 are expected to remain, including Hone, to deal with transport, planning issues and facilities management.
By then, there should be a second series of the BBC TV series Twenty Twelve to enjoy. The mock documentary features Hugh Bonneville as the lacklustre chief executive of the UK’s ‘Olympic Deliverance Team’ who arrives at work each day on a fold-up bike to be greeted by a doting secretary.
So is Hone a fan? ‘I thought it was good,’ he replies. ‘There are times when you sit in meetings and think “What if a TV programme was here?”.’ But he is also keen to distance himself from the Bonneville character.
‘I’ve taken some BBC people around the park, but not the
Twenty Twelve cast,’ he says. ‘As we were going around, I thought the measure of success would be if I didn’t give them any future script ideas.’
Curriculum Vitae
2010–present
Chief executive, Olympic Delivery Authority
2006–2010
Director of finance and corporate services, Olympic Delivery Authority
1999–2006
Chief operating officer/regional director/corporate services director, English Partnerships
1992–1999
Deputy chief executive and director of finance, Commission for New Towns
1987–1992
Financial controller, London Docklands Development Corporation
