Tram inquiry to consider six million documents in evidence

Around six million documents will be considered as evidence by the Edinburgh Trams Inquiry, it emerged today at a preliminary hearing.

Lord Hardie chair of the inquiry, conducted proceedings at Waverley Gate this morning for the inquiry’s first hearing before a public audience.

As a procedural hearing, which began at 10.30 am and ran for around two hours, there were no witnesses or evidence presented.

Lord Hardie announced the seven parties - including City of Edinburgh Council and the Scottish government cabinet - which have been designated as “Core Participants” in the inquiry.

City of Edinburgh Council has already set aside £2 million to cover the cost of co-operating fully with the inquiry.

Lord Hardie also gave a brief summary of the work undertaken by the inquiry since it became fully operational in June 2014.

Organisations involved in the inquiry initially provided access to as many as 500 million pieces of potential written evidence, but the inquiry eventually determined that only 6 million would be relevant to its work.

This evidence is now being filtered by a document management system.