Latest quarterly accounts released by the Olympic Delivery Authority this week show CLM earned an extra £24m since November for keeping costs down on the project.

The latest rise brings management fees to £718m from an anticipated final development cost for the whole project of £7.3bn.

The report stated that the extra money “anticipates enhanced payments to Delivery Partner CLM due to the strong progress of the project against agreed targets.

“CLM’s enhanced payments are based on performance and they are incentivised to drive down costs across the programme.”

CLM consists of Laing O’Rourke, Mace and CH2M Hill. O’Rourke and CH2M Hill both have a 40% stake with Mace owning the remaining 20%.

One industry source told the Enquirer: “It’s a massive job they took on at the Olympics but there will be a few raised eyebrows about the size of the fee now – it’s almost one tenth of the project value and is a huge number.”

An ODA spokesman stressed that the whole £718m fee covers total management of the project by the authority and is not all payable to CLM.