Edinburgh Tram Inquiry: Costs to exceed £13m

The Edinburgh Tram Inquiry will cost more than £13m, Transport Scotland has projected.

The inquiry was established in June 2014 to find out why the tram project was £400m over budget and was completed five years late.

It is investigating what went wrong with the £776m project.

However, more than eight years after the inquiry was ordered by former first minister Alex Salmond, it has yet to produce its report.

The latest figures on its costs were provided following a Freedom of Information request from the i newspaper to Transport Scotland.

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They show that the vast majority of the £13.100,812m has been spent on staff and legal fees.

Staff costs are due to reach more than £6m by the end of this financial year, while legal fees are projected to hit more than £3m.

A Transport Scotland spokesperson said: "We have agreed to continue to fund the costs of the Edinburgh Trams Inquiry until it is completed, final costs will be published when they become available.

"Staffing matters, including how many people the inquiry employs and how much they are paid, are a matter for the inquiry. This is because, as a statutory inquiry, it is independent of Scottish government.

"The Edinburgh Tram Inquiry was, of course, established to look at how any mistakes or failures could be avoided in future major tram and light rail infrastructure projects and we look forward to receiving Lord Hardie's findings when they are made available."

The tram project was first mooted in 2003 when the Labour-led Scottish executive proposed building a network of tram lines at a cost of £375m by 2009.

When the SNP minority government was elected in 2007, it planned to scrap the project.

But that decision was overturned when the other parties in the Scottish Parliament voted in favour of pressing ahead.

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After that, the government said it would not provide additional funding beyond the £500m committed by MSPs.

By the time the first trams started running on the 8.7mile (14km) route in May 2014, the total cost of the project had reached £776m.

Conservative MSP Miles Briggs questioned why the inquiry had not yet completed its findings.

He said: "The final submissions to this inquiry were received in 2018, yet the public inquiry is somehow still in progress - siphoning off millions of pounds of public money in the process.

"It shouldn't be too much to ask for Edinburgh residents to get the answers they deserve out of this inquiry, while also delivering value for money for the taxpayer."