Edinburgh Trams boss's £327,000 'golden goodbye' branded a 'scandal' as probe launched
Investigation ordered into 'excessive' £327k Edinburgh Trams pay-off
A £327,000 golden goodbye for Edinburgh Trams boss Lea Harrison was branded "a scandal" as councillors unanimously agreed to an immediate investigation into how the payment came about.
Mr Harrison stepped down as managing director of the council's arms-length trams company in January after Edinburgh Trams and Lothian Buses were brought together as Lothian Group.
But the council's unaudited accounts revealed he received a pay-off of £327,713 on his departure.
Transport convener Stephen Jenkinson told Thursday's full council meeting: "Lea Harrison's golden goodbye from Edinburgh Trams is a scandal and an unacceptable use of public money."
And he urged council leader Jane Meagher to "secure firm assurances from the current chair of the Lothian Group board that such a payment could not and will not be repeated in the future".
Cllr Meagher said she viewed the pay-off as "completely unacceptable". She said: "The scale of the settlement is something like 10 times the average pay of somebody in this city."
She continued: “I have asked members of the current board - which is not the same as the board that took the decision in relation to the settlement - to satisfy me, through minutes of meetings where this was agreed, that this was done in line with contractual arrangements and company procedures.”
And she said she had had extensive conversations with Susan Deacon, the chair of the new board. “I am assured she has taken all steps to make sure that this could not be repeated.”
Mr Harrison, who started a new job as managing director of Blackpool Transport a month after leaving Edinburgh Trams, regularly featured among the top-paid council-sector employees in Scotland.
His salary in 2025/26 was £187,283. And taken together with “other benefits” of £5,583 and his pay-off of £327,713, his total remuneration that year amounted to £520,579.
Cllr Meagher asked the meeting to back an addendum to the accounts voicing “grave concern” at the “excessive” level of Mr Harrison’s compensation and calling for an “immediate investigation” into whether all relevant policies and procedures were followed.
She said: “Council officers have already written to the chair of the Edinburgh Trams board who has assured us that the new board has already taken steps to look into this settlement, both its cost and the decision making that led to it.”
She said she was confident that new arrangements introduced for the council’s arms’ length companies provided “enhanced rigour and robustness” and that the current leadership of Edinburgh Trams was “firmly committed to maintaining high standards of corporate governance”.
But she said: “Despite that I still felt it necessary to bring this addendum to the council chamber to add the weight of the council to my call for an investigation into this matter.
“I have questions as to how such a generous settlement came about and I think it’s critically important to look at all the evidence in such a situation and that is the aim of this addendum, which seeks to place on record our concern as a council and to ask for more evidence that the appropriate policies and procedures were followed in awarding the sum in question.”
The council agreed the addendum without division.
Meanwhile the Unite union, which represents bus and tram drivers, said it was “furious” about the payment.
General secretary Sharon Graham called it “an abuse of public funds”. And she said: “The money would have been far better spent on improving the transport network, and workers’ terms and conditions. It’s nothing short of a scandal, and action must be taken.”