THE provost and the #90,000-a-year chief executive of beleaguered North Lanarkshire Council will have to stay and face the music over the authority's #4.8m missing public money after their free trip to the World Cup was cancelled yesterday.
As the clamour grew over the council's handling of the direct labour fiasco, Scottish Secretary Donald Dewar instructed Scottish Office officials to examine the finances of similar organisations in all 32 Scottish councils.
The move was partly prompted by the emergence of further problems at the East Ayrshire Council which has a deficit of almost #3m.
Mr Dewar said: ''I am determined to root out mismanagement, incompetence and fraud wherever it is found. My department will pursue its investigations vigorously, thoroughly and quickly so that we establish the full extent of the problem.''
Meanwhile, members of Britain's largest union, Unison, passed a unanimous vote of no confidence in chief executive Andrew Cowe who on Monday cleared himself of blame for the debacle. It was also revealed that an expert accountant was appointed four months ago to oversee finances in North Lanarkshire Council's roads and building services department.
A council spokesman said the free trip to the World Cup for Provost Vincent Mathieson and Mr Cowe had been cancelled. The move followed a call by the Scottish Labour Party for all foreign trips by the council's officials to be stopped until investigations into the council had been completed.
The party's general secretary, Alex Rowley, said: ''The events of recent days have left a cloud hanging over North Lanarkshire which does nothing for the good name of Labour local government in Scotland.''
Given this background, said Mr Rowley, it was ''at best, unwise'' to have allowed Provost Mathieson to attend a twinning to Italy in the past few days. In a letter to the leader of the council's Labour group, Mr Rowley called on them to cancel the provost's trip to the World Cup and all other foreign trips by council officials.
Provost Mathieson and Mr Cowe had been set to fly out to Paris to watch Scotland take on Brazil in the opening game next Wednesday. Provost Mathieson arrived back from Italy on Monday to find two senior council officials had been suspended as investigations mounted into a #4.8m accounting deficit. Both men were in senior positions in the council's DLO and were suspended by Mr Cowe. A third member of the department was suspended last week.
This followed revelations that a council plumber, with a basic salary of #10,600, could earn a total of #54,100 at North Lanarkshire.
Mr Dewar has already ordered an investigation into the affair and the council has called in outside auditors Price Waterhouse.
Scottish Conservatives called on Mr Dewar to amend legislation to allow the Government in Scotland powers to suspend North Lanarkshire Council.
Tory chairman Raymond Robertson said the authority was the victim of deep-rooted management failure at all levels.
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Jim Wallace dismissed Mr Dewar's decision to examine the finances of DLOs in all 32 councils.
Mr Wallace said: ''Few people will be fooled by this attempt to create a smokescreen for the real attention that needs to be focused on Labour's appalling stewardship of DLO finances in North Lanarkshire and East Ayrshire.
''Labour in Scotland clearly feels the need to give the impression that it is getting tough with its own councils, but what we have got is West Central Scotland littered with incomplete inquiries and reviews involving Labour councils and councillors.''
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