G4S ‘repeatedly said it would overshoot targets’

The under-fire firm, which has seen more than £400m wiped off its market value since the debacle, only admitted it would fail last week, according to the Home Secretary. A further 3,500 troops who were drafted in to close the gap have now been joined by officers from nine police forces after security staff failed to turn up at venues.

Mrs May, who was speaking as athletes began arriving at the Olympic village, said the issue was one of scheduling and “getting staff to the venue security tasks”. But she could not give exact figures for how many guards would now be supplied by G4S, saying only that the “precise balance of the number who will be provided will become clear over the next few days”.

Mrs May denied the firm had “deliberately deceived” the Government and she also maintained Ministers had not been told by G4S before last week that the firm would fail to meet its targets.

A total of 3,500 troops were brought in to boost the number of servicemen and women involved in Games security to 17,000 last week. Hundreds of officers from nine forces have now also been drafted in to fill gaps.

Assistant Commissioner Chris Allison, the national Olympics security co-ordinator, said: “Whilst some of the activity police officers are undertaking was not anticipated, plans were put in place to allow us to do this. Forces are making sure they make the best use of their resources locally to do all they can to minimise the impact on local policing.”

But West Midlands Police Federation chairman Ian Edwards said it was “chaos, absolute chaos.” He added: “You shouldn’t lose your local police officer because of the Olympics. Communities are suffering because a private company has failed to deliver on a contract.”

London’s transport commissioner Peter Hendy said the city’s transport network is ready for the Games despite claims that two buses containing US and Australian officials were lost for up to four hours yesterday. A fed-up Kerron Clement, the US 400m hurdles silver medallist at Beijing 2008, tweeted as his bus struggled to find the Olympic village.

He said: “Um, so we’ve been lost on the road for 4hrs. Not a good first impression London.”

Meanwhile, the man masterminding the BBC’s coverage of the Olympics has defended accrediting 765 staff to cover the Games. The corporation, having recently relocated to BBC Sport’s new home in Salford, has been criticised for putting some staff up in London hotels to cover the event.

BBC staff numbers have increased from the 493 that worked on the Beijing Games in 2008.

Dave Gordon, BBC Sport’s head of major events, said: “Don’t forget, NBC is flying 2,700 over from the USA. So we’re pretty lean and mean.”

He added he was confident the BBC would not face the kind of criticism that followed its coverage of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.