By Steve Bargeton, political editor

THE FUTURE of the ground-breaking deal between ministers and Scottish councils was on the line last night over the issue of free school meals.

Last week the Scottish Government announced that all youngsters in the first three years of primary school are to get free school meals from 2010.

The cash to pay for it—estimated at around £50 million a year—is to come from within existing local authority budgets.

The government insists that the commitment is contained in the concordat with the local authority umbrella group the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (CoSLA), which has delivered a council tax freeze.

But a number of councils— including Angus—have said they cannot afford it and that cuts will need to be made in other areas to fulfil the pledge.

Labour claim a total of 16 of Scotland’s 32 councils cannot afford to introduce the scheme without extra cash.

Today an emergency meeting of CoSLA has been called to discuss the issue after CoSLA president Pat Watters spelled out the seriousness of the situation.

At First Minister’s Questions yesterday, Labour MSP Karen Whitefield, the convener of the Holyrood education committee, challenged Alex Salmond on the issue.

“More than half of Scottish councils have publicly said that they can’t afford to provide free school meals within their existing resources,” she said.

“Which education services will be axed to pay for free school meals?”

Mr Salmond listed a number of councils committed to introducing free school meals from existing budgets.

“With that cross-party enthusiasm, I wouldn’t like Karen Whitefield and the Labour Party to be the only party in Scotland trying to take the meals from the mouths of Scotland’s children in 2010,” he said.

Earlier Mr Salmond had said that those councils who were “kicking up a fuss were doing it for political reasons.”

Labour’s education spokes-man Rhona Brankin said, “Everyday brings a new council saying that Salmond & Swinney are forcing cuts in schools budgets to pay for this policy—parents and pupils are suffering for Salmond’s soundbites.”

Scottish Tory schools spokesman Liz Smith said, “The Scottish Government has got itself caught in a trap.

“The SNP came into office on the back of a number of flagship education pledges which promised parents that they would set rigid national targets when it came to issues like school meals and class sizes.

“But at the same time, they also signed the ‘historic’ concordat with local authorities in which one of the underlying principles was to give more freedom to these local authorities to set their own educational priorities.

“With this new freedom and having to work within extremely tight budgets most councils are quite clear that they do not have the resources to deliver the government’s policies.

“The SNP can’t have it both ways. You can’t try to force councils to adopt government one-size-fits-all policies on class sizes or free school meals and, at the same time, tell them they are free to adopt their own priorities.

“This does not make sense.”