The latest Edinburgh City Council press release claims that the Council "have balanced their books again". This is encouraging news and great credit must go to Sue Bruce, the new Chief Executive of the City Council, as they had to cope with trying to find some £90 million savings. So while this statement is welcomed, there is scarcely a mention of the disaster area which is the Edinburgh trams project, except under figures heavily disguised under 'tie' (Transport Initiatives Edinburgh).
We are told that "Tram Infrastructure Contracts" amount to £109 million, but no completion date is given - understandable in the present situation, but worrying nevertheless.
We also have it on fairly good authority that the Council will need another £200 million to get the line to St Andrew Square - there is no mention of this, of course, as it has not yet been considered formally.
So, in reality, the trams project could completely bankrupt the Council who currently are boasting that they have a "rainy day fund" of £13 million - and if completion to Newhaven was on the agenda, we must be looking at something in the order of £1 billion more to be spent.
So there are big figures to be found by the Council if this project is to go ahead. It is not helped by the fact that the current borrowing "Financial Liabilities" stand at £1.59 billion - although under the 'fair value' assessment this rises to £1.817 billion, taking account of the higher fixed rate should the lender require early repayment.
There are also the laibilities of very highly paid executives like Steven Bell, who is the Project Director of tie, receiving £158,875 with an additional payment of £32,480 towards his pension. It makes the amount paid to Councillor Gordon Mackenzie, Convenor of the Transport Committee, of £31,658 with a pension contribution of £6,522 look almost modest by comparison!
But what is really noteworthy is the fact that in this last financial year there were 944 Council employees compared to only 343 a year before. A staggering increase.
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Trams Redacted
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Edinburgh Trams Redacted - and in Crisis!
The comment by edg is absolutely correct, but I said that there was "scarcely a mention " of the trams project. Which is somewhat surprising as it is the most important flagship project that the City Council has had for many years - and it is the one which has been handled in the worst possible way right from its initial inception. What everyone needs to realise is that it is simply not affordable at present in the current economic conditions. The earlier blog was aimed at pointing out the frailty of the Council's financial position and this needs to be appreciated by every citizen who may have to foot the bill as a payer, either of income tax or Council Tax.
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They do mention the trams but only to tell us that everything to do with the trams has been removed or rather "redacted". Here's the three mentions of the trams in the 160-page report:
2.5
"Members will be aware that a report on the Edinburgh Tram project will be considered at the Council meeting on 30 June. The 2010/11 Financial Statements will be considered at the same meeting. As at the time of preparing this report the tram report has yet to be finalised, it has been necessary to redact references within the unaudited financial statements to the tram project. For this reason, neither the Director of Finance, nor the Chief Executive or Council Leader has signed the financial statements prior to consideration by the Audit Committee."
3.10
"Capital expenditure, including expenditure on the tram project and the HRA totalled £254.994m, compared to a revised budget of £324.630m, thus showing slippage of £69.636m, or 21.5% of budget. The phasing of the tram budget had been revised during the year, reflecting the evolving position on the tram project, and thus slippage against budget is less than it would otherwise have been. Slippage occurred on a range of projects across all departments compared with their initial spending profile in the capital programme."
8.1
"b) Note that issues relating to the tram have been redacted in these financial statements, pending finalisation of the report due to Council on 30 June 2011"