Why London 2012 Had to Swot Up on the Guardian

London 2012 has been described as the most-scrutinized project in British public life, with officials facing interrogation from parliamentary committees and auditors that monitor the £9.3bn budget.

It has emerged, however, that senior Olympic officials prepared for one grilling by turning to an unlikely source: the Guardian's sports pages. According to emails released under the Freedom of Information Act, the Olympic Delivery Authority chief executive, David Higgins, and senior advisers turned to the Guardian before giving evidence to the public accounts committee last November.

The PAC hearing promised to be an uncomfortable experience for Higgins and Jonathan Stephens, who, as permanent secretary to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, is the most senior civil servant involved in the project. With the committee poised to interrogate both men for the first time since the vastly increased budget had been announced, ODA officials spent the morning of November 14 preparing briefing notes for Higgins.

Among documents sent to him for guidance was a Guardian article suggesting 20 questions the PAC might put to the ODA.

In an email to Higgins marked "Importance: High", one unnamed official circulated the article under the message: "To be aware that the Guardian has published a '20 questions to ask the PAC today' [sic]. Please see link below."

While it is unclear whether any of the MPs read the Guardian article, the PAC hearing proved just as uncomfortable as was feared. In the course of the hearing Stephens admitted that the entire £9.3bn, including £2.2bn of contingency funding, would probably be required, and the labor MP Don Touhig lambasted both men for presiding over "the most catastrophic piece of financial mismanagement in the history of the world".