Construction Risk Management for Commonwealth Games: Birmingham

This report discusses the construction risk management for Commonwealth Games: Birmingham, including critical risk assessment, evaluation of risk mitigation strategies, and risks on project life cycle. It also covers the background and history of the Commonwealth Games, project management of mega sports event, and the responsibilities of the Birmingham Organizing Committee. The report highlights the importance of long-term benefits and the risks associated with the renovation of Alexander Stadium and construction of infrastructure.

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Running Head: Project Management
Commonwealth Games: Birmingham
CONSTRUCTION RISK MANAGEMENT

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Table of Contents
A. INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................3
B. Description of development........................................................................................................3
B.1 Background & History................................................................................................................3
B.2. Project Management of Mega Sports Event and its characteristics.....................................4
Critical Risk Assessment.....................................................................................................................6
Evaluation of Two identical Risk& mitigation strategies........................................................7
C. Risks on project life cycle...............................................................................................................8
C.1 Risk management and lifestyle stages.........................................................................................8
C3. Preparation Delay and Scheduling Clash.....................................................................................9
D1. Data Security Risk......................................................................................................................11
D2. Security risk..............................................................................................................................11
E3. Heat Diagram with Risk, likelihood, and impact........................................................................13
F. Health and Safety Risk................................................................................................................14
Conclusion..........................................................................................................................................14
G. CONCLUSION...................................................................................................................................14
References..........................................................................................................................................15

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A. INTRODUCTION
The report prepared as under takes in account commonwealth games which are also
considered as Friendly games, which were first held in year 1930. The common wealth games
are conducted in every 4 years. It can be explained as a international multi sport event in
which athletes counting disabilities also have
healthy competition. The commonwealth of
nations is constructed of companies that were
colonized by British empire that count a total of
54 territories. With the development of Common
wealth game federation in year 2001 all sport
related games are conducted under its rules and
actions. The common wealth game can be said
as a 11 day event in which international atheletes
can be seen to face competition in a bigger range
of sports towards a motive which is to bring
Common wealth territories, countries and state at one place together.
B. Description of development
B.1 Background & History
The commonwealth games are a friendly international multi-sports event among
commonwealth nations and few independent territories. From the past few years almost 72
teams seem to participate in it. There are four home nations of the UK (United Kingdom),
Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, all these home nation are seen participating
with their independent teams. The mega event was first held in 1930, it is also known for the
British Empire games event from 1930 to 1950. As a part
from 1942 to 1946 due to World War II, the event
couldn’t be held in this time frame. The event was held
after every four years passed like FIFA world Cup, Olympics, and cricket world cup(BBC,
2010).
The name British Empire games was observed to change with different eras of time,
as after the partition of subcontinent the name changed to British Empire and Commonwealth
Game from 1954 to 1966. After that the name of the event again updated to British
Commonwealth games from 1970 to 1974 when the athletes with disabilities were included
in many games. In 2018 British commonwealth games had achieve the remarkable success
and became the multi sports event in the world with equal contribution of both men and
women. It is also encouraged the social justice in the society(Avison, 2015).
The reason behind start of this event in commonwealth countries is the motivation of
inter-Empire Championships which later became the part of event. The complete
Figure 1, Commonwealth Games
Copyright 2018, Wikipedia

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management of this mega sports event is managed by CGF (commonwealth Federation),
Control of all associated sport related programs, dealing with sponsors, security affairs and
the selection of host cities is also managed by Commonwealth Federation which seems very
exciting and easy task but in actual it requires
great commitment and effort to make it up to
the mark and successful in various manners.
During the event or sport matches, some other
monitoring and managing bodies works for the
coordination of Commonwealth Federation
such as international sports federation Ifs,
Commonwealth Games Associations CGAs
and separate organizing body for each commonwealth game. Without such professional
groups it is impossible to conduct such an international Mega sport event("Victoria, 1994).
There are many world famous rituals and symbols of Commonwealth games such as
Commonwealth game flag and Queen’s Baton Relay in the opening and closing ceremony. It
is such a big sports event that more than 5000 athletes from different countries participate in
250 sports event from 15 different sports. Apart from these sports there are some other sports
as well which are mainly common in
commonwealth countries and not even part of
Olympic, this saying will not be wrong that after Olympic it is the biggest sport event
internationally(Birmingham, 2021).
B.2. Project Management of Mega Sports Event and its characteristics
To organize such a reputable mega sports event is not only a challenging task but a
great prestigious opportunity as well. The commonwealth games Birmingham, 2020
management agreement set out to design the role and responsibility and the framework of
accountability within which Birmingham will operate during the event. The purpose is also to
make an organized set of design for all departments such as digital, cultural, Media and sport
and decides the role and priorities of these coordinated departments. This agreement period is
covered during the time frame of 31 March 2020 and will remain operating until the revised
agreement does not suspend current agreement. But it is considered that these mega project
Management agreements are living documents that could be revised at any time as per the
need and will of both parties. If we recall the history, normally it is reviewed in the month of
march every year and amended if necessary(Varrel, 2011).
Figure 2, BirminghamCommonwealth Games 2022
Copyright 2021, Social Sciences B

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On 21 December 2017 the contract has been signed between Birmingham organizing
Committee, the host country for the next commonwealth games and commonwealth games
federation, and all the responsibilities of mega event management has been delivered to the
Birmingham City under the contract of commonwealth games 2022 Birmingham. The
contract reveals that Birmingham organizing committee will be primarily responsible for the
operational delivery of commonwealth games according to its pure rituals and symbols
without any compromise. Some of primarily roles and responsibilities delivered to the
Birmingham commonwealth Games event are mentioned bellow(Schnitzer, 2020).
 Conduct of every ritual and symbolic importance of the Commonwealth Games
without any compromise. To maintain the event's symbolic identity.
 Sports, programmers, and the result declaration
 International sport standards implementations.
 Marketing of the event and venue (the Alexandria Stadium Birmingham)
 Games, ceremonies, and Follow-up of all regular protocols
 Engagement of audience through social media, electronic media, blogs,
broadcasts, etc.
 Creating entertainment and enthusiastic movement for the spectators and for the
rest of the world
 Tickets sale at hot cake moments.
 Queen’s Baton Relay
 Venue and competition management
 Security and safety
 Cultural and heritage representation and many more responsibilities
All these mentioned roles are not only the responsibilities that have to be covered up,
there many more things and some constraints as well that can also create some problems, to
manage them timely and without any reputation loss is the actual task of Birmingham
Organizing committee for the Commonwealth Games 2022.The Birmingham Organizing
Committee will comply with public finance and public appointments rules. The relationship
between the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (“the Department”) and the
Birmingham Organizing Committee will be governed by this Management
Agreement(Randeree, 2014).

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Critical Risk Assessment
The government is still not clear about the long term benefits of the Birmingham
Commonwealth Games, according to a report on critical assessment of event success that
warned the government to prioritize the legacy of the game. Which is the core identical
feature of the whole event and should be revised in Birmingham as well in an organized
manner. The inquiry has raised importance for long term benefit, as the Alexander stadium
in Perry Barr should be the future of athletics game. They would be expecting more than
6500 athletes in the coming commonwealth games, the main stadium for games event will be
currently costing around £2 million for Birmingham City Council. Birmingham's
Commonwealth Games, requires £778 millions of funding for the operational and other
activities of this mega sports event for this event the government has funded for the
renovation of Alexander Stadium including the increase for seating capacity(Birmingham,
2021). Which is a huge investment of the country’s budget for an event. So, the overall
expectations of Birmingham are concerned with long term benefits. MPs said they believe
that commonwealth games will provide a catalyst for renovating Alexander stadium, the
department of culture, media, and sport do not have much good views, as the investment of
the infrastructure projects, renovation of the Alexander stadium, media and sports programs
reached so high that the government and public expectation also were very high from this
mega sports event even for the long term goals as well. Moreover, it has considered that the
Commonwealth Games 2022 Birmingham, will be the heart of the regional economic
recovery after the Pandemic of COVID-19(IvyPanda, 2021).
The overall target of getting people’s attention and engagement is expected to be 205
million people only from United Kingdom. Which after some time will be paid back in the
shape of business and tourism activities in UK, which is expected to be £24 million of
revenue generated from business and tourism programs beside the promotion of Mega sports
event. Target is to attract as many investors that can help to meet these targets. Moreover,
there is also a goal to create new opportunities and jobs keeping public interest in mind,
through the Commonwealth Games Birmingham 2022(IvyPanda, 2021).
If we further talk about the major risk which is associated to the renovation of
Alexander Stadium and the other risk linked with the construction of infrastructure, the

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Government audit and assessment committee explains that there are many issues in the
progressive phase of all these connected activities. Infrastructure and project authority also
warns the Birmingham regarding the major issues that can cause the delay or suspension of
such mega event. IPA’S ratings also reveal that the successful delivery of the issues are in
doubt due to these apparent issues that demands needs urgent actions for timely solutions.
(Birmingham, 2021).
From one of the issues which are already discussed above is renovation of Alexander
Stadium and construction of the new athlete’s village, both are the capital projects of the
games and are still on track. The new athlete’s village must play a very important role for all
Athletics programs. This project review report was given by DCMS. The nature of risks
associates with capital projects are mentioned bellow.
 Delay in appointment of contractor
 Contaminated land
 No removal of extra stuff such as excavated material
 Delay in mega event
 The current Poor ground condition will not allow to perform activities under
international standard conditions
 Delaying in construction and renovation work and inflation effecting on the
increasing cost of project
 Might late hand over to the commonwealth federation.
Evaluation of Two identical Risk& mitigation strategies
There is no doubt about it that it’s a very big opportunity for Birmingham for now
and in future, for being the host identity of Common Wealth Games 2022. It will promote the
country tourism activities, its cultural values, media engagement, introductions of many new
exchange skills and development programs, encashment of business activities, attraction for
foreign direct investments in the region for sports projects, cultural events, educational and
business expos like in UAE, investment in hotels and entertainment industry. These all
opportunity will be taken into a positive outcome if the event will be conducted in the given
time frame, with complete follow-up of Commonwealth Rituals and symbolic representation
not even same as in past but with great enthusiasm and will(Milano, 2015).

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C. Risks on project life cycle
C.1 Risk management and lifestyle stages
Risk management can be explained as a systematized way of looking into
areas which relates to risk and threats. It consciously helps in determining how
each one must be treated. It is counted as a management tool which has a aim for
identifying threats and risks. It also takes into account uncertainty which would
lead to unwanted costs and damages. Management of such risks should be
considered necessary in every construction company and it shall fulfill demands
such as minimum costs, quality, safety and stability in environment as well. An
effective and efficient risk management strategy in construction helps to
determine how related risks would be managed throughout its project lifecycle.
1st Stage: Development and briefing:
By consideration of site condition and data desired outcome of the project,
expected budget and studying the feasibility of plans as well. The initial project
brief is constructed in this stage.
2nd Stage:
The task located in every team must perform and carry out its roles and operations
well in time which would be distributed for the procedure of designing. It focuses
on areas such as maintaining sustainability, stability, operation related work.
3rd stage:
In stated stage the concept design is viewed and the design described such as
architectural project plan and core services are done. It helps in performing
evaluation and examination of plans developed as well.
4th stage:
With the guidance of expert contractors, the lead designer must be able to finalize
every element of mechanical, structural in such stages.
5th stage:
After deciding design of every project plan, the design is further projected in real
fields and the plan is then brought up into existence
6th stage:

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Once the project is completed on construction sites, this stage counts the
successful handover of it to its consumers and then the project comes to an end.
7th stage:
After the handover of plan, the project is now in ready base to function and deliver
its product and services. It would now focus on laid goals and objectives which
relate to plans being prepared.
C3. Preparation Delay and Scheduling Clash
Due to delay in appointment of contract and delay in starting construction work for
Alexander Stadium there is big disadvantage that the project managers are facing which is
preparation delay, infect for both Alexander Stadium and New village the preparation
activities are not in implementation phase but are still in documentation phases. It is a huge
reputation risk for the conduct of Commonwealth Games in Birmingham(Hanna, 2020).
Moreover, the Birmingham city council had investigated and found that the reason of
delay is due to the worldwide Covid-19 Pandemic. As the planning phases of stadium
renovation and construction of new village has stopped for longer time and meanwhile the
worldwide lockdown has postponed the important meeting in the Birmingham. There is
another impact occurred due to 20% reduction in labor force for the construction of new
village and the demolition of the Perry Barr flyover. Due to lack of labor force at some
stages in project, work was completely paused and after some time it slowed down as well.
The city council reveals that this risk of slower pace of construction were obvious the project
managers should take it seriously if they want to meet the timeline of strategic
implementations of designed task for commonwealth games Birmingham

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2022(athleticsweekly, 2020).
Besides the preparation of Commonwealth Games there is another associated
reputation risk, which is currently faced by management that is Scheduling clash. As we all
are aware of Covid 19, the summer Olympics and Paralympics were also postponed from 23
July to 3 august, from 25 august to 6 September respectively in 2020. But this delay can be
considered due to sole situation of Covid 19 pandemic. Which has affected the whole world
severely including all business activities. If we specifically talk about the scheduling delay in
Common Wealth Games Birmingham 2022, although it is true that the event preparation are
badly affected due to the Pandemic but still management got enough time for covering up all
the previous pending task, now the delay in the scheduling of Common Wealth Games in
Birmingham considered as the sole responsibility of the management body and the
Birmingham Government lock in work steadiness(athleticsweekly, 2020).
Now the biggest problem, which is occurring, is date clash between world athletics
championship in Eugene (United States), World Aquatic Championship in Fukuoka the city
of Japan and Respectively to 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, which could clash
in dates, as the World Athletics Championship and world aquatic championship both were
postponed for a year in 2021.There is very high possibility that the dates will clash with the
Figure 3, BirminghamCommonwealth Games 2022
Copyright 2020, athleticsweekly.com

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Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, if that happens then it will affect the Commonwealth
Games hugely as many of the athletes would not be able to participate in any of the event, if
the participants number declines from the declared number (6500) by the commonwealth
federation then they would be considered a big failure for the project management team of
Birmingham. To avoid that risk the CGF (Commonwealth Federation) said they were in talk
with the World Athletics Association and International swimming Federation (FINA) to
reschedule the events in a way that none of the stakeholder from any side face chances of
reputational loss. On 3 April 2020, the World Athletics announced that the World Athletic
Championships in Eugene, United States, planned from 6 to 15 August in 2021, was
postponed to 15 to 24 July in 2022. The new dates were chosen in such a way that the
Championships doesn't clash with the 2022 Commonwealth Games. On 4 May 2020, FINA
announced that the World Aquatic Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, planned to be held
from 16 July to 1 August 2021, was postponed to 13 to 29 May 2022(athleticsweekly, 2020).
D1. Data Security Risk
Since from the year intelligence risk (IR), (An organization to measure security risk and procurement
guidance) Providing its support to the Birmingham specialist security advisors for Commonwealth
Games 2022 in United Kingdom. IR is specially designed in security functional areas in the
Birmingham and UK. The Intelligence Risk for security has advised the Government to improvise the
security aspects for the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, also provided some procurement
strategies for the security infrastructure of mega sports event to the organizing Committee in
Birmingham. Due to the extensive security and safety recruitment, it is considered as to be the one
of significant thing otherwise, it will be a suicide for any country to conduct such a mega event with
some discrepant security infrastructure. For this reason, the IR contributing well, the most recent
contribution of the intelligence risk was establishing the risk assessment mechanism for competition
venues, international broadcast center and for three game villages(england, 2022).
D2. Security risk
The security risk is also very important because the event footprints are not limited in
Birmingham but also waste across the west midlands as well. Even in London City where the
Lee Valley will host the commonwealth game events(england, 2022).
Moreover, you can also imagine the critical risk factors through this way that many
high profile international places are selected that will be used for the games, including the
Alexander Stadium, arena Birmingham, NEC (national exhibit center), Coventry Building
Society Arena and edge Boston Stadium. All these are such an urban area with huge
population of citizens with extensively venue visits are expected(Randeree, 2014).
To cop the security risk, the organizing committee construct the venue plans such
security requirements including fencing, CCTV and searching and screening needs. The

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methodology that is developed consist of international standards security risk controlling
capability. ISO 31000:2018 will be used to ensure the risk ratings and principal basis for
creating complete security designed and operational work planning. Our project deliverables
support the event’s reputation as the ‘Friendly Games’ while ensuring there will be
appropriate levels of security for Games spectators, athletes, officials, workforce, and
volunteers(Randeree, 2014).

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E3. Heat Diagram with Risk, likelihood, and impact
Risk Likelihood Impact
Preparation Delay +
Scheduling Clash
5 5
Security Risk 4 4
inflation 3 3
Contaminated land 4 4
Tickets sale 1 1

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F. Health and Safety Risk
Construction sites are full of risk related to health and safety hazards, most of the time
it happened due to no follow-up of precautionary measures or with human negligence. The
construction workers should be properly trained on health and safety measures while working
on the sites. There are such kind of risk, moving objectives, slips, trips, falling, noise hazards,
hand, and arm vibration disease. The review revealed that lack of awareness about site safety
and negligence of workers in wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) were the main
causes of poor safety practices. If we talk about the current project management of
Commonwealth games project in Birmingham. Then we should have to create interest of
employees of construction work towards the safety management and enhance the awareness
of possible risk(Schnitzer, 2020). The health and safety statement which are related to Health
and Safety on Work act 1974 considers:
 Giving proper facilities such as toilets, drinking water that must be provided to staff
persons in relation to maintain their better health conditions and situations. It would
also be useful due to the reason it won't be affecting the result of planned project as
well. Safety and health department must do periodic inspection of all appointed
workforce and must assess the responsibilities taken up by them.
 All workers must be given proper PPE kits such as safety helmets, footwear's, gloves,
protection of eyes, higher visibility of clothes and safety harnesses as well.
 Giving a safe work place for ensuring workers that their place of working is not risk
related. It considers safety from fire, management of waste and handling of hazardous
substances as well.
G. CONCLUSION
F. The report hence gives a overview of various type of risk which are faced over a
project lifecycle along with the action which must be taken in account for
avoiding any unwanted consequences and hurdles as well. Moreover, a explained
risk assessment which is about Security risk and Resource risk and also their
developed plans, policies along with many diagrams which would help to
understand risks and their influence on results.

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References
"Victoria, 1994. Commonwealth Games Federation, s.l.: s.n.
athleticsweekly, 2020. Birmingham 2022 reveals medal event programme. athletics weekly,
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Avison, B., 2015. s.l.: s.n.
BBC, 2010. Cornwall fights to be represented at Commonwealth Games, s.l.: s.n.
Birmingham, S. S., 2021. The 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games and potential
economic benefits. [Online]
Available at: https://blog.bham.ac.uk/socialsciencesbirmingham/2021/09/24/the-
2022-birmingham-commonwealth-games-and-potential-economic-benefits/
england, t., 2022. Heart of the UK, soul of the Commonwealth. teamengland.org, 7 4.
Hanna, 2020. Medal event programme for Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games
announced. the GK, 21 10.
IvyPanda, 2021. Mega Sporting Events Management Essay. IvyPanda, 23 7.
Milano, 2015. CONTROLLING THE DELIVERING OF PROJECTS IN MEGA-EVENTS:.
Cognizant Comm. Corp.
Randeree, K., 2014. Reputation and Mega-project.
Schnitzer, M., 2020. Analyzing Project Management Methods in Organizing Sports Events.
sagepub , 29 12.
Varrel, A., 2011. Mega-events and mega-projects. research gate, 1 1.