Planning and Preparedness for Commonwealth Games 2026

21. The 2026 Games are markedly different from an SG co-hosted event, such as CG 2014, in that they arrived in Scotland following the Australian State of Victoria deciding in July 2023 that it could not act as host due to a lack of financial sustainability for the event. In July 2023 Victoria estimated that the event hosting costs had tripled to £3.13 billion and that the derived economic benefits from CG 2026 would not come close to matching the financial input required. Despite much of this cost being associated with building an athletes’ village and planned upgrades to hosting stadia, the level of budget normally associated with hosting the Games is an important point that bears reflection in terms of the subsequent planning for the Glasgow 2026 games, and the need for cost recovery for public services including the SFRS. CG 2026 has been authorised by the Commonwealth Games Federation to be delivered by a private company, Glasgow 2026 Limited, which has been constituted for that purpose. For the purposes of this report this company is referred to as the Games Organising Company (the GOC).

22. The CG 2026 will take place between 23rd July and 2nd August 2026, with an Opening and Closing Ceremony taking place within the city. The GOC has in effect subcontracted the hosting of the reduced sports itinerary for the Games to the four Glasgow venues. With this arrangement the GOC has access to the experienced event planning and hosting staff for each of the venues. In effect they have fit for purpose venues with seasoned and experienced teams to run them during the events that they will host. The GOC has in place arrangements for the payment of costs to the venue owners and operators. The Games will feature 10 sports and six para sports across four venues, with over 500,000 tickets to be sold. The venues are Scotstoun Stadium, the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome and Arena, Tollcross International Swimming Centre and the Scottish Events Campus. The opening and closing ceremony will be held at the OVO Hydro. All of these venues regularly host significant events and have skilled staffing teams who have extensive experience of doing so. Unlike previous editions of the Games, there will be no single site that serves as the athletes’ village. Instead, national teams will be housed within existing hotel facilities across Glasgow.

23. The Games will be delivered through a multi-location model, with concurrent activities at non-venue sites across the city also, e.g. fan zones and at a number of associated GOC funded community events designed to support the games and wider community engagement. With no public funding, the GOC are moving towards “a reimagined and more sustainable method of delivery” that makes use of existing venues, and taps into existing public and private sector expertise in event delivery.

24. As well as securing suitable venues to host the events, the GOC has a responsibility to secure suitable arrangements for the safety and security of the 2026 Games. While SG authorised the hosting of the Games in Glasgow, they did not sign a co-hosting agreement and consequently did not delegate responsibility for safety and security to PS and other public service partners, including the SFRS.

25. Despite this, there remained a need to ensure safety and security that could only be provided by PS, SFRS etc. Public Services, including the SFRS, are expected to support the Games as statutorily required, and to recover all additional costs from the GOC. SG had also been explicit in its requirement for no public money to be spent in the hosting arrangements for the Games, with this in mind the GOC was required to come to an agreement for cost recovery for each of its subcontracted or hosting partners. These included the SFRS for the monetised costs of the capacity of its personnel for C3 arrangements which have commonly been utilised for a wide range of events across a number of years. This approach has placed new demands on the SFRS and other public services to negotiate, rather than assume arrangements that would normally be embedded within a nationally-coordinated event framework. The inspection considered how effectively SFRS has navigated this environment. The C3 arrangements of the SFRS are in line with Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP) of emergency services and are the foundation of integrated response to emergency situations in Scotland and across the UK.

26. It is worth noting that at the time of our inspection, evidence-gathering and report writing, no standardised cost recovery policy for the involved public services had been agreed or published. Such a policy would normally be agreed with SG as a hosting authority, and this would allow a standardised approach to reclaiming costs for services that are planned and provided for events. The SG Safety and Security team for events had recommended to the GOC that a clear cost recovery policy would be advantageous to all parties. Through this approach costs would be understood, and planning could be advanced by the SFRS as this would necessarily be predicated on staff overtime costs that were over and above BAU staffing costs. The issue of cost recovery is considered in more depth in relation to the SFRS and GOC agreed C3 arrangements for the Games.