Trams inquiry told of ‘secrecy’ surrounding project dispute

● Councillors ‘kept in the dark’ amid fears of internal leaks to the press

A former leader of Edinburgh City Council has told the Edinburgh tram inquiry of her frustration at being denied information on the troubled project by the authority’s own arms-length company.

Jenny Dawe said there had been “a huge amount of secrecy” particularly surrounding the bitter dispute between the company, TIE, and main contractor Bilfinger which blew up during the project.

Ms Dawe, who was council leader 2007-12, was the first witness to give evidence on the opening day of the inquiry, chaired by former Lord Advocate Lord Hardie, into why the trams were delivered five years late at a hugely increased cost and on a truncated route.

Asked about how the secrecy had affected the project, she said: “I found it most frustrating when it was concerning the dispute resolution process. The information we were given from TIE was that the dispute resolution was going in favour of TIE – they described it as win or lose and they were winning and the other side were losing – but it soon became obvious that was not what the situation was.

“Also about the costs and the time, very often we were told, ‘Oh no, we can’t tell you that’ – particularly when matters had reached what might be called a stand-off with the consortium.

“The implication was, ‘You cannot be trusted not to tell the consortium what we, TIE, are thinking, so we are not going to give you that information’.”

She said the council was expected to “stand by” TIE and had done so. But she said: “We did not have all the detailed figures because we were told the contract did not allow either party to discuss any matters of dispute resolution with anybody outside the two contract holders.”

She said she accepted contracts had to be respected. But she added: “Everything around the disputes became shrouded in secrecy.”

Nevertheless she said the council had enough information to make decisions on the

0 Lord Hardie is chairing the long-awaited inquiry into the Edinburgh trams saga project. “I don’t think it impeded decision-making, but in looking at documents for this inquiry I found there were internal memos going around which do suggest that councillors were perhaps being kept in the dark.”

Ms Dawe told the inquiry that when she became leader of the council in 2007 it made a “huge difference” to the amount of information she received. “As opposition leader I was definitely getting a lot less information.”

She said councillors were regularly briefed by officials but it was usually in party groups, not all councillors together.

And she said information might not be provided as early to those who were opposed to the trams – because they were suspected of leaking it.

“We knew there was information getting into the press and we believed that to be coming from anti-tram sources on the council.”