NICOLA Sturgeon is facing immediate resistance to her plan to move to a five-tier coronavirus lockdown system next month after outlining it to Holyrood leaders.
The Scottish Tories and Liberal Democrats both said they were concerned and frustrated at the lack of details after the First Minister shared her proposals yesterday.
It is understood the new system, which is due to start on November 2, would have three central tiers akin to the medium, high and very high alert levels in England, which curb hospitality and social mixing.
However, there would also be an extra upper and lower level.
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The lowest would be as close to normality as possible in the absence of a vaccine, while the topmost tier would involve extreme restrictions, including travel bans.
Closing schools and switching to home-based "blended learning" would always be a last resort.
But there is not yet clarity on exactly what the public could expect in each tier, or the support to people and business from limited Scottish Government funds.
One source familiar with the talks said there was frustration on the opposition side at the lack of detail provided in the lengthy meeting.
Some of the discussion was over whether the first tier should be referred to as "level one" or "level zero" to distinguish it from the system down south.
Ms Sturgeon intends to publish the broad framework by the weekend, with a vote on it in Holyrood next week.
But she made clear that her government, rather than MSPs or councils, would make the final call on which tier applied in which area, saying "the bucks stops here".
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She said it was her "driving ambition" not to get into stand-offs with local authorities like the one between the UK Government and Greater Manchester.
She said: "These are tough decisions. I think it's really important that the buck for these difficult decisions stops here with me and the government.
"We're asking people to do extraordinary things right now and it's not fair for me and the government to try and offload those decisions on other people, whether local authorities or health boards."
She said the government would engage and collaborate with councils, "but ultimately we have to be able to take the decisions".
As with the quarantine system for international travel, the tiers would be reviewed weekly.
Ms Sturgeon is also facing a backlash from the hospitality trade after hinting the current circuitbreaker restrictions, which were touted as a temporary 16-day measure ending on October 26, could be extended for a week until the new tiered system takes effect.
The Scottish Cabinet will decide whether to roll-over the rules today.
However at the daily briefing, the First Minister said it would "make sense", both in terms of sequencing the changes and public health, "to see that rolled over", rather than zigzag between regimes.
An extension would have the most impact in the five Central Belt NHS board areas, where 3.4million people are already under the most severe restrictions in Scotland, and pubs and restaurants must close.
Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross said: "While we will scrutinise the proposals closely when they are published, we are concerned about any proposed extension to the current temporary restrictions with no consultation and before businesses have seen a penny of the funding that they were promised."
Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said: "People are making big sacrifices, and for them to keep doing that, they must be persuaded by evidence: much better evidence than provided at the moment.
"For any new strategy to work we need to see the establishment of a much better relationship between central and local government, the full involvement of Parliament and the consent of the people."
LibDem leader Willie Rennie called for mass testing for Covid.
He said: "I am very concerned with where this is going.
"People made great sacrifices for months and are frustrated the government did not keep its part of the bargain on testing, quarantine checks and planning for the return of schools and universities.
"The public need to be treated like adults which means sharing the science and the modelling so they can see whether the new sacrifices they are expected to make have a good chance of working."
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