'Do Edinburgh citizens think their council tax is being well used? No, they're frustrated'

City's new £200,000-a-year chief executive on earning the city's trust and learning from Manchester

A wry laugh echoes around the Costa coffee shop opposite Edinburgh’s council headquarters in Market Street.

Sitting opposite me - and the source of the laughter - is Paul Lawrence. He has just taken up one of the hottest seats in local government as the new £200,000-a-year, or thereabouts, chief executive of the city council.

As he moves up into the top job, the prospects of rubbish starting to pile up on the streets outside as the Capital’s bin crews prepare to go on strike during the Festival is in many ways the least of his worries, writes Euan McGrory.

His new desk at Waverley Court may be a long way - physically and metaphorically - from Downing Street, but the essential problems are pretty similar.

Edinburgh is the worst funded local authority per head of population in Scotland. There is an affordable housing crisis, a calamitous breakdown in social care, potholed roads and public transport are crying out for investment, the city’s cherished arts institutions are facing their bleakest finances for years - and there is no money. That is a situation that is unlikely to change any time soon.

In the circumstances, why the hell did he want the job?

“That’s a good question,” he says, as his genuine laughter fades away. “No one else has asked me that.”

The penny arcade to the £1bn development

“The truth is I did think really long and hard about whether to apply. I was really happy in my old job. It was like every job you do, there were good days and bad days.”

The 61-year-old’s old job was basically getting things done for the Capital. As the city council’s director of place since 2015, his wide remit covered everything from planning, housing, transport and economic development to culture and the environment.

Among the things he did help to get over the line were the £1bn St James Quarter development - possibly the biggest urban regeneration project of recent years in the UK outside of London - and the enormous, ongoing investment in the city centre, mainly from the hotel and hospitality industry.