ABERDEEN council has voted to write to the UK Government to ask for direct funding, bypassing Holyrood and the devolution settlement.
The motion passed in a council meeting last night by 22 votes to 19. The vote ruled that chief executive Angela Scott should write to Scottish Secretary Alister Jack for grant funding.
Scott will also approach the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla) to stress that Aberdeen council would prefer any granted money to bypass Edinburgh.
Aberdeen’s council is co-led by the Conservative Douglas Lumsden and former Labour councillor Jenny Laing. Labour suspended nine of the city’s councillors from the party after they formed a coalition with the Tories, meaning Laing now sits as an independent.
Lumsden, who penned the motion, had updated it to include reference to devolution as the “settled will” of the Scottish people following claims the plans were an attack on the sovereignty of Holyrood.
READ MORE: Backlash as Tory council co-leader wants to bypass SNP to get cash from Westminster
The council co-leader said the local authority should be “investigating any potential way of increasing our funding and any pot of cash we can get our hands on”.
He said that Aberdeen council has been historically one of the lowest funded in Scotland, and that his motion aimed to get the city its “fair share”.
SNP group leader Alex Nicoll responded: “I would respectfully suggest the ‘fair share’ is an ill-thought out concept that requires some flesh on the bone.
“Please tell us today how this is actually going to work in practice?
“It’s very easy to stand there and claim we are being hard done by.
“A more cynical person might suggest, quite simply, that this is a plan to fail in order that you can once again moan at the Scottish Government.”
READ MORE: Tory councillor's desire to bypass SNP for UK cash is an attack on devolution itself
Liberal Democrat group leader Ian Yuill said the motion was “pie in the sky” stuff, adding: “It’s never going to happen for a start but it’s also a massive attack on the devolution settlement.
“Yes, the SNP government in Edinburgh does not give this council a fair deal, but the way to solve that is to change the government or its mind; not to do a deal with the UK Government.”
Aberdeen council spent £1804 per head on “General Fund Net Revenue Expenditure” in the year 2018-2019, according to Government figures. Only Edinburgh council spent less, on £1639 per head. The Scottish average was £1981.
The average local authority spend in England over the same period, according to Westminster figures, was £1725 per head.
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