John Biggs and Andrew Boff, two of the London Assembly members that most often take the powers that be to task over Olympic Legacy, were in good form this afternoon questioning LDA chief executive Peter Rogers on the agency's Olympics work.
Biggs wanted to get to the bottom of the thorny issue of the government's £9.3bn budget for the Olympics and what it all really means.
Biggs pointed out that if the circa £700m that the LDA agency has spent on the Olympics land is not included in this budget (which it isn't) then what has the government exactly been talking about when it mentions efficiencies and cost savings and the like.
"Should the Olympic Budget be more like £10bn with the LDA's budget included?" Biggs asked.
Rogers said that in that case a raft of other budgets such as TfL upgrades to get people to the Olympics should be included. He added: "The LDA budget was about regeneration in east London and not the Olympics ... this is a chance to upgrade the offer for all the communities of east London. It is not a subsidy for the Olympics."
I think that does not really answer Biggs' probing in one key area. How can we all take seriously the government and ODA's calculations that regularly appear - and the next quarterly bulletin is on Monday - when they don't include billions of pounds spent by other agencies on Olympics related work, and when I say related, buying and remediating the Olympic Park itself is fairly central.
Rogers estimated the LDA will receive about £900m in return from the OPLC for its debt and land.
Andrew Boff became particularly animated around the issue of remediation, claiming that the land has only been cleaned up for the purposes of the "three week event" and for all other purposes there will need to be more money shelled out.
As I have written before, I am to be convinced about this, as is Biggs, but it is good Boff and others are pushing for answers.
Elsewhere it emerged that the case investigating staff suspended at the LDA because of the £160m budget black hole is going to an Employment Tribunal case. The LDA tells me this is an "ongoing appeal process".
Biggs was probing on what the OPLC's budget is and will be when the land transfer deal occurs. He wants to know particularly who will pay for it should it become a Mayoral Development Corporation or a "Mango" - a mayoral quango, as Biggs catchily termed it.
There are clearly many political battles still to be fought over at the OPLC and City Hall.
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