Scots council paying back £1.5bn private finance deal on historic buildings to fund equal pay scandal

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Glasgow City Council will pay a staggering £1.5billion to rent its own buildings over 30 years to settle £770million of equal pay claims.

And a tax haven-based finance company is being used for a part of the deal which sees the sale and lease-back of its historic City Chambers headquarters and landmark Kelvingrove Art Gallery.




A Sunday Mail investigation has lifted the lid on the crippling finance package for the first time including how:

  • Rent payments of around £32million a year will rocker to over £70million a year by 2050.
  • Council services will be axed and residents charged and taxed to pay the bill.
  • Bermuda headquartered Assured Guaranty has brokered £220million of borrowing.
  • The council will eventually pay over £1.5billion in rent to service loans of £770million.
  • Rent for Kelvingrove Art Gallery alone – for now a free to use facility – will be over £4million a year.
  • Desperate council leaders have even had to sell off newly built primary schools and state-of-the art sports facilities.
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum which is one of the key buildings propping up the finance deal.(Image: ./iStockphoto)

Lib Dem economy spokesman Willie Rennie said: “It’s simply adding insult to injury that not only are Glasgow residents seeing the architectural crown jewels of their city sold off but that fees for doing so will be flowing to financial firms headquartered in tax havens abroad.

“It will be decades before the council owns its own buildings once again. That’s a depressing state of affairs that speaks to the parlous state of local government finances.”

Glasgow finalised the second phase of a £770million settlement with 19,000 workers who had been unfairly paid last year.

At the heart of the dispute was the fact female dominated jobs like working in school canteens had historically attracted a lower wage than male dominated sectors like refuse collection.

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