THE taxpayer bill for a cash-strapped Scots council's aborted plan to privatise its sports and leisure services is running into the hundreds of thousands of pounds.

New figures show Stirling Council spent £63,260 on the tendering of its controversial proposal hand a 25-year contract to run its sports portfolio, a move it scrapped at the very last minute.

The sums do not include the cash spent on officers' time in the 14 months preparing the plan, while local politicians said they anticipated further legal fees resulting from the plan.

At the same time the authority's arms-length trust spent almost £90,000 on its attempts to continue operating the service. Active Stirling had been running the service for 11 years.

Stirling Council defended the spend, claiming it was “necessary and appropriate to seek specialist legal and logistical advice”. But the local MP has described it as "nothing short of a scandal", while the authority's opposition leader called for a halt to the use of more public cash on the axed plan.  

Stirling's Labour/Tory coalition would have been the first in Scotland to wholly privatise a front-facing service had the £25m deal with Sports and Leisure Management (SLM) gone ahead.

Concerns were raised that the new venture will lose the public sector ethos required for local authorities to tackle health and social inequalities.

But minutes ahead of last month's meeting where the coalition administration was expected to confirm the deal the council's leadership dropped the plans, with Stirling now looking to set up a charitable trust similar to those operated in Glasgow, Edinburgh and other Scots councils.

Local SNP MP Steven Paterson has now condemned the cash spent on the tendering after a response to an FOI request showed the cost of the process.

Mr Paterson said: “The outrageous Tory/Labour administration plan to privatise sports provision was bad enough, but the revelation that Stirling taxpayers’ money has been used to pay over £63,000 in legal costs associated with it is nothing short of a scandal.

 “Stirling is the only local authority in Scotland to have attempted to privatise these services, and the while the last minute climb down by Tory and Labour councillors was the right move, they should never have pursued this flawed and extortionate plan in the first place.

“This privatisation attempt seriously threatened sports services as we currently know them, and the huge legal bill pursuing this agenda is a damning indictment on the failure of this Administration.”

SNP group leader on Stirling Council, Scott Farmer, added: “It is possible that further costs could be incurred as a result of this process. The administration must offer assurances to Stirling taxpayers immediately that no more public money will be spent as a result of this tendering process until a full review has taken place."

Stirling Labour spokesman Gerry McGarvey, said: “It’s more than a bit rich to have to listen to this from the SNP, the party who sold Scotrail to Abellio and continue to fund new schools and hospitals with private money.

“The SNP should be celebrating that it was a Labour policy, introduced in 2012, that saved Stirling’s leisure services from falling into private hands.

Tory councillor Martin Earl said: “Scottish Conservatives have always been fully aware of the potential ramifications the full tendering process could result in since it was agreed by elected members in December 2015. However, that cannot be said for some other parties who did not appear to understand what was involved."

A Stirling Council spokesman said: “We undertook a robust, open and competitive procurement process for sports and leisure services in Stirling. "At a meeting of Stirling Council on February 9, councillors voted unanimously to look at establishing  a Stirling-based not for profit-trust to deliver sports and leisure services. As part of the process, certain necessary and appropriate costs were incurred.”