Edinburgh City Council’s former leader has claimed the council was ‘deliberately denied’ access to important information by its arms-length company that was managing the delivery of one of the city’s biggest projects.
Donald Anderson, who was council leader between 1999 and 2006, gave oral evidence to the Edinburgh Tram Inquiry yesterday.
The purpose of the inquiry is to determine why the Edinburgh Trams project was not completed within the timeframe proposed and why it cost far more than originally estimated.
Mr Anderson said senior councillors and officers were not given information necessary to make important decisions about the project, which was managed by Transport Initiatives Edinburgh (TIE), the council’s arm’s-length organisation responsible.
He said: ‘What I can tell you is that senior elected members and officers of the council were entitled to get access to the information they needed to make important decisions about one of the biggest projects and the most controversial projects in the city's history and they weren't given access to that information.
‘Indeed they were denied, and deliberately denied access to that information by officials and TIE.’
Mr Anderson added that decisions were inaccurately presented to the council.
He said that this gave the impression that the contractor was ‘being difficult and was trying to extrude money from the council’ but actually they were only ‘standing up for legitimate interests in terms of the contract.’
According to Mr Anderson, the incorrect information made it nearly impossible for the councillors to manage the project.
The inquiry continues.
This article first appeared on our sister website The MJ.
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