The SNP leader of Fife Council has launched an attack on Labour MPs as the row over whether or not the local authority received funding from the UK Government to support disabled children and their families rumbles on.
Peter Grant said he has “no intention” of acceding to a “ludicrous request” for an audit into how an earmarked allocation of £2.2 million was spent for the reason there was no such money.
Glenrothes MP Lindsay Roy wrote to Mr Grant asking whether Child Trust Fund scheme top-up payments of £100 for children in care had been disbursed as part of Fife’s share of £34 million, which he claimed was allocated to the Scottish Government specifically to support families with disabled children.
Mr Roy said, “It is a matter of considerable concern that, so far, the funding allocation for disabled youngsters and their families in Fife cannot be traced, given the priority status accorded by the council.
“In terms of accountability, a rigorous and robust audit with detailed feedback is required.”
However, Mr Grant replied, “The all-party Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has used the words ill-informed, disingenuous, misleading and perverse to describe Labour’s hysteria over this. Having now been expected to correct the same display of ignorance from three different Fife Labour politicians (Claire Baker, Helen Eadie and now Lindsay Roy), I think CoSLA are being too soft on them.
“These three parliamentarians cost the people of Fife the best part of a quarter-of-a-million pounds per year, but they don’t even seem to have the initiative to make their own mistakes they have to repeat each other’s blunders instead.
“Mr Roy is now compounding the error by claiming that the Treasury in London has the right to tell Fife what to do with our money. This is an astonishing misrepresentation of the way that public services in Scotland operate.”
He added, “The really sad thing is that none of these politicians have shown the slightest interest in the excellent work carried out to provide the best possible support for young people with disabilities.”