"GORDON Brown's department has frozen £1.5bn of Scottish Executive funds and told Holyrood ministers they must justify their spending plans before the money will be released. The Treasury has broken the fragile funding pact between London and Edinburgh by imposing conditions on the return of money from the savings account which the department holds for the executive. The unprecedented challenge to Holyrood's autonomy is causing growing alarm among Scottish ministers.
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The money being withheld is a result of the Executive's failing to spend its annual grant within the year allocated. By last August, the total was £1,531,892,000."
If it were not for the fact that the Executive had failed to spend the funds which it was allocated in previous years, the question of Treasury controls would not arise. The real scandal is the accumulated underspend by the Scottish Executive of £1.5 billion. This is money which they were allocated but did not spend. It may not be enormous by comparison with the Executive's annual spend of £22 to £27 billion but it still represents significant incompetence on the part of the Executive.
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