A discussion about Fife Council’s finances led to angry exchanges between councillors.
During an executive committee meeting in Glenrothes, SNP councillor David Alexander branded council leader David Ross a liar over how much the local authority had in the bank.
Andrew Rodger, who chairs the integration joint board for health and social care, stormed out after the issue of delayed discharges from hospital was raised.
Mr Alexander said Mr Ross failed to answer his question about the £23.5 million in unallocated funds detailed in the report to the committee at Tuesday’s meeting.
He later told The Courier: “There is £24m in unallocated reserves and he didn’t answer the question.
“He said on Thursday that we have nothing and it’s unbelievable another fib.”
But Mr Ross said according to financial projections for next year the council would have a cushion of less than 1.1% of its total budget. He said of the £23.5m, £14.1m would be needed to fund redundancies and voluntary early retirement.
In the region of £700,000 has been earmarked for other spending commitments.
“There has been a projected £2.6m improvement, but that would still bring the projected balance at the end of next year to £8.7m, which is just over 1.1%.
“Our policy is to have a 2% cushion,” said Mr Ross.
The meeting at Fife House became heated after opposition councillor Neale Hanvey highlighted a paragraph in the report stating that funding arrangements would “maintain” delayed discharges.
He asked why bed-blocking was being maintained instead of reduced.
Mr Rodger launched into a defence of Fife Health and Social Care Partnership, but was told to cut short his speech by Mr Ross.
“You have not allowed me to defend the service and I’m not having it,” said Mr Rodger.
“I get to talk for two minutes and I’m being told to shut up.”
He then left the meeting.
Mr Hanvey dismissed Mr Rodger’s suggestion that his question was an attack on the service.
He said: “I asked why we’re trying to maintain bed-blocking levels when we should be taking them down.
“Andrew reads that as an attack on him or the service, which is just not the case.”
Mr Rodger returned to the meeting for the next agenda item.