THE Lord Provost office expenses row at one of Scotland's largest councils has deepened after it emerged the civic head only attended a fraction of the engagements that were attributed to a rise in costs.
Edinburgh City Council officials at Lord Provost Donald Wilson's office said he was down to attend 900 engagements.
However, amid concerns that staff expenses have doubled in the space of a year, the local authority has now admitted that Mr Wilson attended only 340 such engagements and 182 of those were either a dinner or a refreshments reception.
The revelation came after the council's Tory group leader Cameron Rose scrutinised the figures from the Lord Provost's office.
Mr Wilson's deputy and other senior councillors, or baillies, attended a further 119 official events on behalf of the Lord Provost. This was said by Mr Rose to be still well below what he was led to believe when he had asked official questions in writing.
Mr Wilson had earlier faced criticism for charging a £250 bill to take out his kilt to the public purse before paying the money back out of his own pocket, which he said he had always intended.
A spokesman for the council insisted there was no intention to wrongly inflate the number of engagements, despite previously pointing towards a correlation between the growing expenses of the office and Mr Wilson's workload.
It was revealed this week in The Herald that the running of the Lord Provost's office - which has two chauffeurs - is now under review. Mr Rose said it was his responsibilty to scrutinise such issues - including the turnover of staff in the Lord Provost's office - and it is "important I get accurate information in order to do so".
Finance convener SNP councillor Alasdair Rankin responded on behalf of the Labour/SNP-run council that he would provide the information, but that it may involve clauses of confidentiality.
Mr Rose said the matter is expected to be pursued at a legal level. He said after the meeting: "The information we've been given is not accurate and there is more information to come out."
The council spokesman said: "In addition to the official engagements, the figure of 900 also included internal meetings and briefings as organised by the Lord Provost's office."
The council said earlier that the Lord Provost, in line for a payrise from £36,528 to £37,262, "fulfils an important promotional role".
The Lord Provost's office employs a staff of about 12, including full and part-time workers and secondments from other departments as he "develops his role further". His predecessor managed the department with an equivalent eight staff.
The council insisted the calculation on engagements had reflected "like-for-like" comparisons with previous Lord Provosts such as George Grubb whose total events had been 429 on a similarly typical year.
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