Council has paid out almost £1 million in compensation

Published 3 Jan 2013 07:30 1 Comment

CASH-STRAPPED council chiefs have paid out almost £1million in compensation over the past five years, it has emerged.

The claims, which total £945,079.46, mostly relate to drivers whose cars have been damaged by potholes.

However, other payments have been made for damage caused by grass cutting, inadequate supervision and local authority workers hitting parked vehicles.

The details were obtained after the Scottish Conservatives submitted a Freedom of Information request to Scottish Borders Council.

Borders MSP John Lamont has criticised the figure. He claimed the money should have been spent on improving local services.

Mr Lamont said: "This is a staggering figure. That Scottish Borders Council has spent nearly a million pounds on settling compensation claims will surprise many people and it is clear that this figure needs to be reduced.

"It is only right that when someone is injured or has their property damaged through no fault of their own, councils should pay up quickly and efficiently.

"However, we must also ensure that councils are given the appropriate legal support to ensure that they get a fair deal when any compensation is given."

Scottish Borders Council, which is led by a rainbow coalition, with the Conservatives in opposition, recently announced it needs to save at least £27.5million over the next five years.

Mr Lamont said: "With council budgets having to be stretched further and further it is important that we spend money as wisely as we can.

"This is a significant amount of cash that could have been spent on improving the services and facilities in the Borders."

But he added: "Instead, Scottish Borders Council has had to invest a lot of time and money on these claims. Spending this amount of money is simply not sustainable and we need to see these claims start to reduce if we want to see the best use made of our council tax."

Meanwhile, it has emerged that the number of sick days taken by council workers during the Olympics is severely down on the same period for last year. Between July 27 and August 8 this year a total of 1,638 sick days were taken by Scottish Borders Council employees. That is 190 days down on the same period the year before.

Tweet

Have your say. Post a comment on this article.

• 

  wull
  Unregistered User
  Jan 6, 17:52
  Report comment

  It doesnt take genuis to see the state of the roads,i would like to ask where does all the road tax money go, is it swallowed up by admin or some other badly thought out expenditure, to reduce costs on workmen hitting other vehicles, why doesnt the sbc get all thier drivers assessed on thier driving skills if they have an accident, the company I work for takes drivers off the road until they have been assessed after an accident, it works, because after 3 accidents your out of a job,, if its your fault,,,
  
  Recommend?   Yes 1     No 0

Post a comment

Your Comment:

Registered users log in here

Username or email

Password

You must be logged in to post. If you have not registered with us, please do so now.

Registration only takes a few minutes. Registered users do not have to complete word verification once logged in and can also take part in competitions and other registered user only features of the site.

Word Verification:
Enter the text as shown.

Return to the main index, get more from this section or browse our News archives.

Follow @bordertelegraph