A FORMER transport convener at Edinburgh City Council has criticised a lack of political leadership during a dispute which saw work on the tram project grind to a halt.  

Lesley Hinds told and inquiry of her frustration with the then council leader Jenny Dawe, saying he "should have got more involved" and taken the issue "by the scruff of the neck".

The ex-Labour councillor also described how she was shocked to discover officials were aware of a "real problem" with the city's trams project months before it became clear to councillors, saying that some elected officials eventually "lost trust" in the information being given to them.

Ms Hinds became transport convener at the council in 2012 and is now semi-retired, and is the second witness to give evidence at a public hearing for the official inquiry into the capital's trams project.
The probe, chaired by Lord Hardie, is examining why the project went significantly over-budget and was delivered years later than originally planned.

Ms Hinds spoke of frustration at the level of information shared with opposition councillors between 2007 and 2011.
"We became extremely frustrated in terms of the information we were being given," she said.

"When I was interviewed, there was many documents and emails that I'd never seen before and certainly I was quite shocked to discover officers were well aware there was a real problem with the trams project months and months before it ever became clear to us, myself as an individual, but also the Labour group."

She said they would have put more pressure on the administration to act if they been fully informed.

Ms Hinds said she and the Labour group reached a point in 2010 when they "just lost trust" in the information being given by council officers and the local authority's arms-length body Tie (Transport Initiatives Edinburgh).

The witness also told the inquiry that she and her Labour colleagues were "very frustrated that there was no political leadership" from the council administration when the dispute with contractors emerged in 2009.

She suggested Ms Dawe should have gone directly to the main contractor to try to resolve the dispute, "because it was obviously not being resolved by Tie".

"It's my view, and I think it's the view of the Labour group, that the leader of the council should have got more involved and that she should have (taken it by) the scruff of the neck and tried to sort this out," said Ms Hinds.

She added: "I just felt the answers were, 'Well that's not up to me', almost like, 'I'm only the leader of the council'."