Storm brews on horizon over Scottish council cuts
This week, it emerged Scotland’s largest council needs to plug a £19.7m budget hole – as Prince Andrew paid a multi-million sum to settle the case with his abuse accuser
Monday, February 14 Greens attack SNP over £52m plan for freeports
THE Scottish Greens have openly attacked their SNP partners in government over the creation of two freeports north of the Border as part of Boris Johnson’s levelling up agenda.
The junior partner at Holyrood said the landmark £52 million plan would “hand tax breaks and public money to rich corporations”, despite a lack of evidence that it would boost the economy.
Green MSP Ross Greer said his party would have “nothing to do” with the scheme and said the SNP should do likewise, “instead of working with the Tories”.
The unprecedented spat coincides with a planned visit by the Prime Minister to Scotland today to promote the freeports, which at the SNP’s insistence have been dubbed “green freeports”.
Centred around docks, airports or railway hubs, freeports are designed to encourage economic growth by exempting goods arriving in them from tax and customs charges.
Businesses in freeport zones – which are up to 45km or 28 miles across – can then use this lower-cost material to manufacture goods and export them again without ever paying full tariffs. The UK freeports are being funded by the Treasury, which will subsidise them with tax breaks, including enhanced capital allowances and lower employer national insurance contributions.
The Scottish Government can also help with business rates, and land and building transaction tax.
Legal battle looms 10 years on over ‘£168m’ Rangers debt
A COURT fight is now on the cards over the extent of debt Rangers actually owed when they became insolvent 10 years ago.
According to liquidator BDO, the debts claimed amounted to £168.8 million. But a final figure is expected to go to just under £100m.
The club’s unsecured creditors included more than 6,000 fans who bought £7.7m worth of debenture seats at Ibrox – only to be robbed of their investments when the club was plunged into administration.
So far, they have managed to get back £108,134 between them. More than £7m was owed to “trade creditors” – ranging from giants such as Coca-Cola to a picture framer in Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire.
In total, they have managed to reclaim no more than £379,351.
The creditors also include Susan Thomson, who ran a face-painting business. She was owed £40 when the club went bust.
Now it is understood new court action is on the cards as both BDO and the Rangers “oldco’s” biggest debtor, HM Revenue and Customs, have been in deadlock over a “blunder” that could see the taxman’s overall claim against Rangers oldco for £94.4m cut in half.
Meanwhile, the £50m “fakeover” of Rangers, it has since emerged, involved a businessman four years into a UK company directorship ban.
Tuesday, February 15 Budget cuts warning as council faces £19m shortfall
UNION leaders are warning of another year of cuts to budgets and a council tax hike after it emerged Scotland’s largest council needs to plug a £19.7 million hole.
Glasgow City councillors will meet later this week to set the budget for the coming financial year but trade union Unison says it looks like yet another year of cuts to service budgets and claimed council tax rises were on the cards. Brian Smith, Unison branch secretary, said: “Glasgow’s councillors should use some of the city’s unallocated reserves of £31m to set a ‘no cuts’ budget, and then lead a proper campaign to win more money for the city.
“This has been a consistent call from the trade unions and it remains a serious alternative to just passing on cuts year after year. Glasgow needs more money and meekly managing austerity budgets from both Holyrood and Westminster has been a failed strategy.”
Investigation ordered after sacking of quango boss
A COUNCIL leisure quango has announced an independent investigation into the sacking of its general manager after a tribunal branded the process biased and unreasonable. Gerry Campbell was sacked from his role as general manager of South Lanarkshire Leisure and Culture (SLLC) after officials from the area’s council botched an investigation into claims
he mishandled a staff grievance. An employment tribunal found that a string of errors by council leaders and staff led to his unfair dismissal, while he also won claims for breach of contract and unfair dismissal.
A row over how things should progress also led to the then-SLLC chair, Councillor David Watson, being forced from his post, resulting in him withdrawing from the SNP.
SLLC has now announced that it will instruct an independent legal firm to look at what went wrong in Mr Campbell’s case. However, opposition councillors fear this will not go far enough.
Wednesday, February 16 Duke in multi-million settlement deal to see off sex case
PRINCE Andrew has settled his sexual abuse lawsuit with Virginia Giuffre after he agreed an undisclosed deal said to be worth £7.5 million with his accuser, without admitting her accusations.
Court documents filed in New York revealed the Duke of York and Ms Giuffre have reached a “settlement in principle” in the civil sex claim.
But despite the settlement, royal experts have said the Duke of York is unlikely to ever return to public royal life, having been “tainted” by the scandal.
The agreement states the duke will donate to Ms Giuffre’s charity in support of victims’ rights and that he has pledged to “demonstrate his regret for his association with Epstein” by supporting the “fight against the evils of sex trafficking, and by supporting its victims”.
Ms Giuffre, now Virginia Roberts, made the claim for damages in her home country of the US, claiming she was trafficked by the disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein, Andrew’s friend, to have sex with the royal when she was 17, a minor under US law.
Although the parties have settled the case, the agreement is not an admission of guilt from the duke, and he has always strenuously denied the allegations against him.
Yousaf slated as hundreds of patients wait hours at A&E
OPPOSITION parties have demanded Health Secretary Humza
Yousaf gets on top of “wholly unacceptable” A&E waiting times as recent signs of progress slid into reverse.
The latest official figures showed more than a quarter of people attending casualty had to wait longer than the four-hour target for treatment last week.
Public Health Scotland reported that just 74.4 per cent of patients were seen on time in the seven days to February 6, down from 75.6% the previous week and 77.7% the week before that. The successive weekly declines followed a brief upturn in the New Year, when there had been two consecutive improvements, albeit from a record low.
At the time, the waning impact of the Omicron variant of Covid was seen as easing pressure on the system and on staff shortages.
The return to a worsening picture prompted fierce criticism, with the opposition accusing Mr Yousaf of a lack of leadership that could ultimately cost lives. The latest data showed the number of patients waiting over four hours in A&E was 5,999, up from 5,647 the previous week.
Thursday, February 17 SNP failed to study impact of nuclear plant closures
SNP ministers have been accused of “jeopardising future jobs and energy supplies” after it emerged no modelling has been carried out on the impact of closing down all of Scotland’s nuclear power stations on the cost-of-living crisis. The SNP-Greens Government has insisted it is opposed to new nuclear power stations being built – arguing the technology is a bad deal for consumers.
Nuclear industry leaders have warned that the Hunterston B power station has “saved Scottish consumers £360 million since the energy crisis began, equivalent to £152 for every household in Scotland”.
But it has been revealed that no modelling has been carried out by the Scottish Government on the impact closing Hunterston B and Torness will have on energy bills – with Scots facing a huge hike in prices in the coming months.
Last month, electricity generation was switched off at Hunterston B after almost 46 years.
Since coming online in 1976, Hunterston B produced enough zero-carbon electricity to power every home in Scotland for almost 31 years – with EDF, which ran the plant, claiming the carbon avoided by the facility is the equivalent of taking every car off Scotland’s roads for 19 years.
But concerns have persisted over the safety of nuclear power and the environmental impact of disposing of harmful waste. Torness power station in East Lothian, now
Scotland’s only remaining nuclear power station, is set to be switched off in 2028, two years earlier than anticipated due to safety concerns.
The Scottish Government remains opposed to new nuclear power stations being brought forward “under current technologies” – with an updated energy strategy due to be published soon.
Abusers ‘weaponised’ Covid by not washing hands
MALE domestic abusers “weaponised” Covid by refusing to wash their hands and continuing to socialise to intensify distress for their partners, a shocking report has found.
Perpetrators used restrictions to diffuse responsibility for their controlling behaviour by touting the message that “the Government is saying you have to stay at home with me”. Helpline workers reported cases of men purposefully disobeying Government guidelines as a new way of abusing partners.
One helpline worker told Scottish researchers: “Women in particular were saying that they were obeying the lockdown measures as much as much as they could.
“And, overwhelmingly male partners, were disregarding the measures. So, going into other people’s houses, going to the pubs when you were still able to do that, and not washing their hands, and sort of disregarding and disrespecting those measures specifically as part of the emotional abuse.”
Some women reported they were washing their children after seeing fathers “for fear that they may have come into contact with the virus when in their care”.
Friday, February 18 Over 600 Scots miss out on prostate cancer diagnoses
HUNDREDS of Scots are estimated to have prostate cancer but have not sought treatment due to the pandemic, it has been warned.
The warning from a cancer charity comes as a new campaign is launched, urging people to get check-ups with their GP.
It is feared that men have not had the prostate check because of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, and because only a limited number of patients have been able to go to GP surgeries, where there are strict rules on physical distancing.
One in 10 men in Scotland is at risk from prostate cancer, more than 26,000 men are currently living with it, and nearly 1,000 a year die of it.
Disgraced SNP ex-minister Mackay sets up consultancy
THE disgraced former SNP finance secretary Derek Mackay is attempting to embark on a new career as a consultant, The Herald can reveal.
The 44-year-old vanished from public life two years ago on the eve of the Scottish Budget after a sleaze scandal involving a 16-year-old boy.
He has now set up his own firm, Lochan Associates Ltd, which Companies House says will conduct “management consultancy activities other than financial management”.
Incorporated earlier this week, it lists Mr Mackay as its sole director, sole shareholder and sole “person with significant control”.
The company is registered at the address of a chartered accountancy firm in Paisley.
Saturday, February 19 Sex crimes rise blamed for prisoner numbers not falling
JUSTICE Secretary Keith Brown has blamed a “high number” of historical sex offenders in custody as one of the reasons why Scotland’s prison population has not fallen 14 years after a landmark report made sweeping recommendations to tackle the country’s high incarceration rate.
Ministers were told in 2008 that they should decrease the number of inmates from 8,000 to 5,000 amid concerns more people were being jailed per head of population by Scottish courts than in all other parts of Western Europe.
However, despite the recommendation made 14 years ago in the report by the Scottish Prisons Commission, chaired by former first minister Henry McLeish, the prison population increased further.
Official statistics show the average daily population increased almost 10 per cent between 2017/18 and 2019/20, from 7,464 to 8,195. Ahead of the pandemic in February 2020 it was 8,027, while it currently stands at 7,533 – of whom 7,260 are men – after some prisoners were released during the Covid crisis.
Last week, Mr Brown unveiled a new strategy to reform the country’s justice system with a central plank focused on tackling the high prison population.
However, critics are sceptical Mr Brown will achieve his ambition. In an interview with The Herald, the Justice Secretary was asked why the Government had not implemented the 2008 recommendation.
NHS 24 data shows 240,000 calls were not answered
MORE than 240,000 calls to NHS 24 went unanswered from September to January in figures described as “astonishing” by opposition parties.
At a time when patients were urged to call the helpline before going to A&E, an average of almost 50,000 calls per month to the NHS 111 number failed to be connected. The highest number of abandoned calls occurred in September 2021 when 68,119 were left unanswered, according to the data obtained by the Scottish Conservatives. Over the festive period in December, on more than 46,000 occasions callers were unable to speak to anyone.
The Tories said that “shockingly” on January 3, nearly half of all calls (49.7 per cent) were abandoned, accounting for more than 7,000 failed calls on that day alone.
The Scottish Government said it recognised that patients had faced longer waits due to increased demand at peak times but said some callers might choose to end the call themselves as the automated message directs patients to other services including 999. However, Jackie Baillie, Labour’s health spokeswoman, said the “damning” statistics showed thousands of Scots had missed out on medical help.
A separate investigation by her party found that between October 2021 and January 2022, 25% or more of daily calls to NHS 24 were not connected on several occasions.