The wages are pretty lowly compared to the amount per head, especially when you bear in mind that 28K covers a period of less than two months - the olympic games and the paralympic games run from the 27th July to 9th September.
The bulk of the recruits are being sent by the job centre, who will no doubt pick up the tab and pay the training provider for the course. Presumably, the training provider in this instance will be G4S - no doubt charging the taxpayer or trainee around £200 quid for the mandatory 30 hour course.
As the Job Centre will most likely be paying the tab, the SIA training given will be for Door Supervisors, which allows you to be a bouncer, events steward etc in addition to being a security guard as this apparently gives the candidate more opportunities for employment.
Many of the olympic security guards have to buy their own uniforms, presumably from a certain provider of G4S branded workwear. If you want to wear covert body armour, get it yourself. The gloves are about £30 a pair, a decent KR1 anti-stab vest is around £300
The rate of £8.50 is good for static security, and the supervisory staff get an amazing £11.50 per hour. If you actually turn up to do the work you get a £1 per hour bonus!
The thing is, in London I'd expect a competent doorman to get £10-15ph working the doors and the head doorman to be on £15-20ph
G4S only had 10 permanent managers assigned to the games, and 700 temporary managers that a couple of newpapers had described as 'low paid'.
Where the hell is the money going if the company claims it could make a loss??
That £284m could have paid for 15,000 police officers for a year.
