INVERCLYDE Council yesterday voted to defy the Scottish Government and raise council tax by nearly 15 per cent over the next two years - after a ministerial demand for a freeze to the levy was branded 'wholly undemocratic'.

The local authority's Labour-led administration won the crucial ballot 11-9 following days of political mud-slinging in the lead-up to marathon near three-hour meeting in the council chamber.

SNP members withdrew their budget at the last-minute after independent councillor Lynn Quinn tabled an amendment for the council to wait until next Friday for to see if a promised cash injection from Holyrood could be realised.

Doubts had been cast over an eleventh-hour pledge from Scottish Government finance secretary Shona Robison to offer Inverclyde Council ‘around £2.9m’ if it kept the levy at its current level.

Labour councillors said that the figure, which is the sum of Inverclyde Council’s share of the £147m Holyrood set aside for a council tax freeze and the further £62.7m from UK Government Barnett consequential for social care in England, could not be guaranteed.

Council leader Stephen McCabe said the Labour administration would press ahead with its budget and branded the Scottish Government’s freeze as 'shameful, vindictive and it’s an affront to democracy'.

Mr McCabe added: “Decisions on council tax should be for democratically elected local councillors free from coercion by the Scottish Government.

“COSLA leaders, including SNP leaders, believe that this extra funding, if it does materialise, should not be withheld from any council that increases council tax and I would hope irrespective of the outcome of today’s debate that our SNP councillors will make those representations to the first minister and deputy first minister.

“The council tax freeze is also regressive, a quarter of households in Inverclyde do not benefit from the council tax freeze as they are the ones who are in receipt of council tax reduction, and they are the ones who suffer most when services and jobs are cut.”

Mr McCabe claimed that over the last 17 years the council has had to make recurring savings of over £75m, for which he laid the blame at the feet of the SNP.

He continued: “This has been the most difficult budget process that I have been involved in during my 17 years with the council.

“Despite the challenges, we are fulfilling our legal obligation to deliver a balanced budget and, more importantly, we are delivering a budget that protects frontline jobs and services for the people of Inverclyde.

“At a time when Inverclyde is haemorrhaging jobs in the private sector, we have kept council jobs losses to the bare minimum.

“The budget savings options put out for consultation included 110 jobs losses. This budget doesn’t include any of those proposals.”

Inverclyde Council’s SNP group leader Elizabeth Robertson defended her party’s original budget and said her group wished to avoid taking money from local people’s pockets.

She added: “We do have a base choice of £2.8m either coming directly from the pockets of the people of Inverclyde or baselined from the Scottish Government.

"If we have an 8.2 per cent council tax increase and we approve that today then Inverclyde moves from being an authority with an average council tax band D level to being the second highest in the whole of Scotland.

“That just doesn’t seem like where we should be.”

Councillor Robertson claimed that the amendment proposed by councillor Quinn gave the local authority an opportunity to ‘look beyond’ the binary choice of the two budgets.

Speaking in support of her amendment, councillor Quinn described the behaviour of the Scottish Government as ‘shameful’ and sought to postpone the council’s final decision until after the UK Government’s Spring Budget on March 6.

She said: "I would just point out that I’m hoping that we do go back to through our lobbying powers through COSLA and also our SNP colleagues here to actually speak to the Scottish Government because this can’t be allowed to continue.

“Just leave us alone, give us our grant and stop imposing council tax freezes – it’s undemocratic."