Published Thu, May 13 10 10:47 PM
Funding for the London 2012 Olympics will not be protected from government spending cuts needed to bring Britain's record public deficit under control, Culture and Sport Minister Jeremy Hunt said.
Identifying huge budget savings will be one of the first tasks of Prime Minister David Cameron's new coalition government as it takes steps to tackle a deficit running at more than 11 percent of GDP (national output).
"Olympic money is not protected," Hunt told the BBC on Wednesday when asked what cuts his department would be making.
"None of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport's budgets are protected and we're looking at all of them and saying, 'Can we save this money without affecting our core services?'"
Hunt said if planned cuts were spread evenly across all government departments, his department would need to find savings of about 66 million pounds ($97.50 million).
The government is planning an initial six billion pounds of cuts this year.
"It is something all government departments have to take responsibility for," he said.
Construction of the Olympic park is on time and within the 9.3 billion pounds budget.
However, in March a parliamentary committee warned the London Games faced a "tight" financial situation, with only 194 million pounds available to cover any new risks in the run up to 2012.
London Mayor Boris Johnson told the BBC that while the budget was not protected, the Olympic Delivery Authority had already made considerable savings and expected it would find more by the time the project is completed.
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