Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929

24 Mitigation of liability of county councils and town councils of large burghs for temporary loans raised under 11 & 12 Geo. 5. c. 64.

(1) For the purpose of affording relief to the county councils and the town councils of large burghs to whom liabilities in respect of loans (including overdrafts) raised by parish councils under section two of the Poor Law Emergency Provisions (Scotland) Act, 1921, are transferred under this Act, the following provisions shall have effect with respect to such loans :—

(a) The Department of Health shall, in the case of each county and large burgh to the council of which liability for any such loan is transferred under this Act, certify the amount of the liability on account of the loan outstanding at the commencement of this Act, after deducting therefrom such amount (if any) as represents sums required by the Department to be paid by a parish council before the commencement of this Act which have not been so paid;

(b) Where any such loan is a loan made by the Scottish Board of Health, the sum so certified with respect to the loan shall be repaid without interest to the Department by the council liable therefor within fifteen years from the commencement of this Act either by means of an annuity equal to one-fifteenth part of the certified sum, the first instalment being payable on the fifteenth day of May, nineteen hundred and thirty-one, or by such other means as may be agreed between the Department and the council ;

(c) Where any such loan is a loan made by a person other than the Scottish Board of Health, the loan and the interest thereon shall continue payable by the council liable therefor at such times and by such instalments as are required by the terms of the contract of borrowing; but the Department shall pay to the council out of moneys provided by Parliament an annuity for fifteen years equivalent to the difference between the sum so certified by the Department as aforesaid with respect to the loan, and the value of the annuity which would have been payable to the Department by the council had the loan been made by the said Board, and had interest been payable thereon at the rate of five per cent.;

(d) If the amount which under the foregoing provisions of this section would have been payable by any council in any year in respect of sums so certified by the Department if all those sums had been on account of loans by the Scottish Board of Health and had been repayable by means of an annuity equal to one-fifteenth part of the certified sums exceeds the amount which would be produced by a rate of sevenpence and one-fifth of a penny in the pound levied on the reduced rateable value (within the meaning of Part III of this Act) of the county or large burgh, such adjustments shall be made between the Department and the council as will secure that the amount of the excess is not required to be defrayed by the council.

(2) The foregoing provisions of this section shall not apply to any such loan raised by a parish council after the twelfth day of November, nineteen hundred and twenty-eight, and in such case the council to whom liability for the loan is transferred shall make the payments due in respect of capital of and interest on the loan in accordance with the terms of the contract of borrowing.

(3) Where a parish is not wholly comprised within one county or large burgh, the liability of the parish council for any such loan as aforesaid shall be apportioned between the several counties and large burghs in proportion to the unreduced rateable value (within the meaning of Part III of this Act) of the parts of the parish comprised therein, and the foregoing provisions of this section shall apply as if the part of a loan apportioned to any county or large burgh were a loan the liability for which was transferred to the council thereof.