The revelation in The Times this morning that two senior members of staff at the London Development Agency have been suspended as part of the ongoing audit into a £100m shortfall in the 2012 Olympic accounts is something that has been doing the rounds for three weeks now.
I first put it to the LDA at the end of May as I was putting together a I June story on the KPMG audit that inspired the suspensions.
The audit is focusing on whether the LDA has agreed reasonable prices for land during its compulsory purchase programme for the east London Olympics Park site.
The two suspended staff members are Gareth Blacker, director of the Olympic Legacy Development Team, and an as yet unnamed accountant working in the team.
The agency refused to confirm or deny the story then, saying it would never comment on staff matters like this. The official line from Blacker's office since then has been that he has been on holiday. He was unable to attend an EG development conference two weeks' ago because of "tube problems", which is of course highly believable.
I think the LDA could have played this differently.
Sources close to it all say there is no chance that anything fraudulent has gone on as The Times appears to infer. In fact Blacker and his team are well respected and he is expected to return shortly to carry on what are still ongoing and sensitive negotiations.
The audit focuses on a potential underestimation of the costs of assembling the 838 acre Lower Lea Valley site in east London since 2006, something that is relatively common in major CPO programmes and they have spent £750m so far after all.
And of course it's not hard to imagine the pressure the team was under to get deals done.
Nevertheless along the way it appears that between £60m and £100m, due to be reserved as compensation for relocated businesses, has either not been set aside or was never budgeted for.
It doesn't sound great clearly but there will be a report very soon from KPMG and no one at the LDA is expecting there to be any talk of fraud in it.
Perhaps if the LDA had just explained all of this three weeks ago The Standard and The Times would not be focusing in such depth on what can't make for pleasant reading.
On a more cynical note, perhaps the mayor won't be particularly unhappy that it appears that an audit he initiated is querying escalating costs.
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