COUNCILS’ £300M BLACK HOLE

COUNCILS may face more cuts after funding watchdogs found a £300million black hole created by SNP ‘incompetence’.

Yesterday, Audit Scotland published the annual non-domestic rating account. It revealed ministers had ‘a deficit balance of £ 97million’ after redistributing ‘more to councils in recent years than councils have collected in receipts’.

The report concluded more transparency is required from the Scottish Government in dealing with business rates.

Scottish Tory finance spokesman Murdo Fraser said: ‘This exposes huge incompetence at the heart of this SNP Government. The SNP cannot be allowed to use this as an excuse for cutting council budgets to the bone.’

Scottish Labour economy spokesman Jackie Baillie said: ‘This report shows there is a clear problem in financial forecasting by the Government.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘No mistakes have been made. The non-domestic rating account is a statement of fact based on information received from local authorities.

‘Neither local authorities nor businesses have lost out as the Scottish Government guarantees each council’s share of the combined general revenue grant plus non-domestic rates total.

‘We welcome the call in the report for greater transparency, which is consistent with our plans to improve the overall transparency of the local government funding settlement. This will be reflected in the Budget next Thursday.’