SCOTTISH Government officials asked not to receive board papers relating to Edinburgh's troubled tram project, despite providing it with £500 million in funding, it has emerged.
Correspondence between Transport Scotland and Tie, the council-owned tram developer, has shed new light on a decision to withdraw from direct involvement in the project in 2007.
It prompted accusations by Labour, which obtained the correspondence following a Freedom of Information request, that ministers had "asked to be kept in the dark" after their attempt to ditch the scheme was outvoted by opposition parties.
On August 21, 2007, Bill Reeve, Transport Scotland's then-director of rail delivery, sent an email to Willie Gallagher, then Tie's executive director, confirming the agency "will not in future attend meetings of the Tie board and no longer requires to receive copies of the papers for Tie board meetings". This was reiterated the following month by Malcolm Reed, the then-chief executive of Transport Scotland, in a letter to Mr Gallagher.
The hands-off approach was criticised by Audit Scotland in 2011, when a dispute between Tie and contractors had left the project in freefall, and eventually reversed in September 2011.
Sarah Boyack, Labour's Lothians MSP, said: "This shows astonishing incompetence from John Swinney. He wrote a cheque for half a billion pounds, but his officials didn't even want copies of the paperwork."
However, Transport Scotland pointed out the agency had continued to receive regular update reports throughout the duration of the tram project.
A Transport Scotland spokesman said: "Responsibility for delivering the tram project lay with Edinburgh City Council. Transport Scotland, however, continued to receive monthly detailed progress reports and also requested confirmation, on a quarterly basis, that grant conditions were being met."
City of Edinburgh Council initially declined to release any information, claiming the correspondence had been lost. It later admitted this was a mistake and was criticised by Scotland's Information Commissioner.
However, Colin Keir, the SNP MSP for Edinburgh Western, said it was "hypocritical" for Labour to criticise governance of the tram project after the party voted it through in 2007.
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