StuartW wrote:
But there seems to be some confusion over what's to be done with the excess cash left over because it's been underclaimed. I think five councils have now made additional grants and, if the stuff posted earlier is correct, the other councils have been instructed to do likewise.
Well looks like Fife Council definitely not paying out any more dosh in the meantime:
On 19 April, Fife Council wrote:
I have had it confirmed that Fife Council will not be issuing any further grants at this time. It is my understanding that the other local authority areas mentioned (much smaller than Fife) have utilised discretionary funding to make these additional payments.
Note the reference to *discretionary funding*, so it's not about the spare cash underclaimed from the ring-fenced budget for the trade, which from what I can work out was required to be returned to the Scottish Government.
But from what I gather there may still be stuff going on behind the scenes regarding what can be done with that unclaimed money, so I'm still hopeful there might be a bit more cash forthcoming, but the purdah thing may be an impediment in that regard. And, of course, the purdah thing effectively rules out the totally new promise of £1,500 per badge pledged by the finance secretary if the SNP win the election (which of course they will).
Anyway, I'm not going to get into any disputes with Fife Council about this, but note the reference to the areas that have used discretionary funding being 'much smaller than Fife'. Can't really see the relevance of this, assuming there's some correlation between available funding and population, which no doubt there is.
And in fact in the last couple of days Edinburgh has found another £1,000 per head, and Edinburgh is a lot bigger than Fife, at least population wise.
And if the population logic is relevant then why haven't the authorities much smaller than Angus (which paid out an additional £2.5k per badge, thus £4k in total) paid out any more?
Anyway, here's hoping