Finance secretary Derek Mackay has told local authorities that they must sign up to their individual settlements by January 20, or risk receiving a “revised and inevitably less favourable offer”.
However, a number of councils have refused to sign the deal, pointing out it hasn’t even been approved by the Scottish Parliament yet.
No party backed the SNP’s draft budget last month, and the nationalists are yet to find the extra votes they need to ensure it goes through.
As such, the Scottish Conservatives have said, it’s rich for the Scottish Government to expect councils to agree a budget which has no guarantee of being approved.
It was reported this morning that North and South Ayrshire, along with Inverclyde, are the latest organisations to dig their heels in on the deal.
Scottish Conservative local government spokesman Graham Simpson said:
“The SNP is using bully-boy tactics to force councils to accept this settlement.
“But the budget hasn’t even been approved by the Scottish Parliament yet, with no indication that is close to being signed off.
“Perhaps Derek Mackay should spend less time trying to threaten councils, and more time finding common ground with other parties to ensure his budget doesn’t fall flat on its face.
“Local authorities are quite right to refuse to sign up to this until there’s a guarantee of it going through.”