Why did the Edinburgh Tram Inquiry take so long?
Lord Hardie who was charged with conducting the Edinburgh Tram Inquiry (ETI) which cost millions and was much delayed, has responded citing operational difficulties with accommodation and internet as the reasons for some of the delay.
The Edinburgh Tram Inquiry report was delivered nine years after it was instructed by then First Minister, Alex Salmond at a cost of more than £13 million. His Lordship submitted evidence to the parliamentary Finance and Public Administration Committee on Tuesday.
In advance of the committee meeting at Holyrood the retired judge sent a written submission which covered many of the practical issues, saying these were reasons for the delay.
He said: 'Following my appointment as chair of ETI, I had to identify suitable premises with the assistance of the Solicitor to the Inquiry, whom I had appointed immediately following my appointment, and other civil servants unconnected with the ETI. This issue is addressed in chapter 2 of my Report. I was offered and accepted the use of premises that were surplus to requirements of Creative Scotland. The rent was paid by the Scottish Government and the office premises had the appearance of a modern office with adequate IT connections. The appearance was deceptive and for almost 6 months staff at ETI struggled with inadequate IT connections which frequently failed.
'The effect on staff morale was significant and there was a considerable waste of time and money during that time. In the Report I refer to the fiasco of Vodafone failing to install a cable on different occasions for different reasons and failing to link the portals to a newly installed cabinet.
'Apart from accommodation it was necessary to appoint a Secretary whose early tasks included staffing the Inquiry office with document coders, an IT manager and others. Many of the staff were agency workers while others were civil servants electing to transfer to ETI. Because of civil service procedures the delay in civil servants, including the Secretary, moving to ETI resulted in delay to the initial progress of the Inquiry. The process of setting up the Inquiry with accommodation, staff and other resources gave the impression of our reinventing the wheel. There was little or no guidance to assist with this stage of the Inquiry.
'My first recommendation of 24 in my Report was that 'Scottish Ministers should undertake a review of public inquiries to determine the most cost-effective method of avoiding delay in the establishment of an inquiry, including consideration of establishing a dedicated unit within the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service [SCTS] and publishing regularly updated guidance for people involved in the establishment and progress of public inquiries.'
Net costs
Lord Hardie also recommended that in any future inquiries the costs should be reported net – and he gave his reasons why the net cost of £8.7 million was the more representative cost of the Edinburgh Tram Inquiry.
He said: 'Wherever possible and in the interests of economy regarding public expenditure I used resources that had already been funded by the public purse. These included the cost of accommodation which was vacant and where the Scottish Government was the tenant and had sub-let it to a government department or agency.
'It also included the salaries of permanent civil servants who had transferred to the ETI and whose posts in their former department were not filled. Although these costs were added to the costs of the ETI as an accounting exercise, the public purse did not incur any additional expense. I am aware that not all public inquiries have adopted a similar approach. For example some may use accommodation that is not already available within the Scottish Government's portfolio of leased but vacant property; some may also use more staff recruited from outside the civil service.
'In these examples the costs will be included in the costs of the inquiry and will be additional expenditure incurred by the public purse. As I explained in my video release of the ETI Report, if the expenditure on resources already funded by the public purse was deducted from the cost of ETI, the cost at that time would have reduced from £13.1 million to £8.7 million.'
Lord Hardie Chair of the Edinburgh Tram Inquiry
Professor Sandy Cameron
Professor Sandy Cameron, CBE, who is currently Independent Chair of the Children and Young People's Centre for Justice, gave evidence to the committee in person. He was involved in the Jersey care inquiry which was supposed to last six months and cost £6 million – but it took two years and cost £23 million.
Asked about the apparently enormous cost of that inquiry he was asked if lawyers are motivated to keep the cost to a minimum.
He replied: 'Legal colleagues work very much on the basis of doing what they believe that they need to do, rather than looking at how to contain and manage costs. The expectation is, 'This needs to be done. We will do it and we'll keep going until it's done.' There is a reluctance to look at other ways in which they might have done it and other ways in which they could have contained costs. To some extent, that is about the way in which legal colleagues always practice.'
Professor Cameron said in his written submission that he can 'confidently predict that … inquiries will last longer than anticipated and cost more than budgeted for'.
He suggested to the committee that there must be another way of conducting inquiries which 'manage the costs more effectively and deliver more rapidly for people'.
He explained that the public 'lose interest' when inquiries last for a long time, and for inquiries involving survivors or victims there is 'the issue of how long it feels for them that the inquiry is taking to get to a conclusion'.
The cost to the public purse in the last years has been considerable – some £91.9 million on the child abuse inquiry and £34 million on the Scottish Covid Inquiry.
Michael Marra MSP who sits on the committee posed the question as to whether it might be possible to set up a judge-led public inquiry unit. Any instructions would then be sent to that unit to set up more quickly and also to keep tabs on finances. But Professor Cameron was not convinced that any such body should be judge led.
He said that he thinks there is good reason for looking at an alternative to public inquiries, but explained to Craig Hoy MSP that it is important that there is a degree of independence in reviewing the outcome of any recommendations of any inquiry.
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