Dispatches

For most people the London Marathon is synonymous with everything that's good about London, Londoners and humanity in general. The marathon is after all the largest annual fundraising event on Earth.

This year the London Marathon turns thirty, and the event's organizers are confident record sums will be raised for charity, taking the total over three decades to more than half a billion pounds.

Dispatches has been investigating the organization behind the marathon. It is itself owned by a charity: the London Marathon Charitable Trust. Profits from organizing the race - and from four other, smaller running events, selling merchandise, a fitness show and magazines - are handed to the charity which then distributes money to finance recreational and sporting facilities.

But Dispatches has discovered that of the money that the marathon organizers receive, just one quarter goes to the marathon charity. Last year, the London Marathon's takings amounted to almost £18m. But less than £4.5m was handed to the trust. The remaining £13.5m was taken up in costs.

And what were those costs? Where did the money go? The London Marathon's accounts give little away. Some £1.3m went to pay wages, pension contributions and social security contributions for its 23 employees - an average of more than £50,000 a head. But the lion's share - the remaining £12 million - is lumped together as simply "other" costs. The London Marathon refuses to give a breakdown: it says the information is commercially sensitive.

The accounts do, however, disclose one nugget of information: last year, the London Marathon's highest-paid employee was paid more than £240,000. That puts this unidentified person very near the top of the list of the highest-paid individuals in the entire UK charitable sector. It is more than twice the amount paid to the highest-paid people at big charities such as Oxfam and the RSPCA.

Charities are desperate to secure places for runners in the race. Of the 36,000 people taking part in this year's event on April 25th, thousands will be taking up places bought by charities. Most of these are bought for £300 each. But some charities pay far more to secure running places. The London Marathon sells "advertising packages", which offers charities adverts in magazines bundled together with guaranteed places for runners in the race. Similar packages are offered through a separate company, Realbuzz, which handles the London Marathon's online applications system. Several charities have told Dispatches that they buy these packages not for the advertising they offer but in order to secure running places. With some of these deals, charities can find themselves paying upwards of £2000 in order to get a runner into the marathon.

This means that for some charities, it is actually cheaper to fly a runner to the US to take part in the New York Marathon than it is to buy an advertising package that includes a running place in the London Marathon.

Dispatches has discovered that the London Marathon's charitable status means that it is looked on favorably by public bodies: it gets discounts on services which means the event is subsidized by the taxpayer. In 2008, for example, the Metropolitan Police spent more than £400,000 on helping out with the Marathon. But the London Marathon has told Dispatches that it paid the Met just over £52,000 for policing the event.

Local authorities also subsidize the event. Tower Hamlets council, the borough which hosts more of the race than any other, picked up £75,000 out of its total £80,000 costs for preparation and cleaning up.

Is the London Marathon valuable for charities who want to raise money? Without question, yes. Is the London Marathon itself a charity? It is. But the London Marathon has also become a seriously big business.

On the 25th of April, runners will arrive for the Marathon. Vast sums of money will be raised but a huge chunk will go to organizers of the Marathon. The big questions are why and just what happens to that money. Until the London Marathon agrees to be more open, charities, runners and the public simply won't know.

Websites