THE Scottish Government has been accused of wasting money on referendum "propaganda" after it emerged that funds have been switched from Scottish Water's budget to pay for communications.
Revisions to Finance Secretary John Swinney's draft budget show £800,000 has been moved from Scottish Water to "strategic communications" in the run-up to the referendum.
The revised spending also showed an extra £800,000 for referendum costs this year though the money has been brought forward, the Government said, leaving the overall budget for the vote at £13.7 million.
Scottish Conservative finance spokesman Gavin Brown said: "It seems Alex Salmond has taken money out of infrastructure, and put it into his pot for spinning through a referendum.
"On countless occasions the Scottish Government has failed to be straight with the Scottish people about its plans to break up the UK, and dodged almost every question asked.
"It is time for it to come clean on exactly what this hastily moved money will be spent on."
Drew Smith, Scottish Labour's constitutional spokesperson, said: "At a time when ordinary Scots are struggling to pay bills and put food on the table, it seems the sky is the limit for Alex Salmond and his referendum propaganda."
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said Scottish Water's use of short-term loans had increased funds available to ministers, which had been "deployed to support strategic communications".
She added: "There has been no change to the cost of the referendum."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article