ORGANISERS OF an Angus arts festival which claims to be Scotland’s most successful outside the nation’s two leading cities have been given another funding finger-wagging by angry councillors.

Last year, Brechin Arts Festival was criticised by opposition SNP councillors for a cash grant bid which was described as being “full of holes.”

Despite projections that the event could generate a boost for the county of anything up to £750,000, critics were reluctant to offer combined support of around £10,000 from Brechin common good fund and the authority’s community grant scheme.

They did so only on the basis that a full financial follow-up picture of the festival was delivered.

Yesterday, Angus corporate services committee members were given three pages of income and expenditure sheets for the 2007 event, along with a report describing the festival as a “tremendous success,” but opposition councillors said it was not enough.

The festival committee revealed that visitors had come from across the UK, mainland Europe and other parts of the world.

Such was the success of the event, they added, that the festival won the Angus Ambassador Award for Tourism 2007.

But Arbroath SNP councillor Alex King said he was unhappy that the full report demand of an executive sub-committee had not been met.

“The requirement was to provide a profit and loss account for each event and the numbers attending each event, and what we are being offered here is a very short paragraph and a copy of a bank cash book.

“The reason we are asking for that information is that I understand that a number of these events were extremely sparsely attended.

“Whilst I have nothing against Brechin Arts Festival, I am not in favour of council money being used to support events which have proved to be of very little interest,” he added.

Brechin independent councillor and Angus Alliance leader Bob Myles accused Mr King of being “petty” in his demand, saying that a number of events were free and no official recording of numbers attending would take place.

“Brechin Arts Festival is the largest outside Glasgow and Edinburgh and we should be encouraging people to come to Brechin and Angus, so to put this caveat on the festival for the future seems small minded to me,” he said.

Corporate services director Colin McMahon told members further information had been requested from the festival committee and that would be presented in a future report.