The Scottish government has been told to "cheer up" after being told it would be allocated just £68.8m from the £530m Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) fund to roll out broadband in rural Scotland.
Scottish infrastructure secretary Alex Neil said he was "disappointed with the allocation".
"This announcement from the UK government has fallen short of the expectations of the Scottish economy to the overall costs of broadband rollout in the remote and rural parts of Scotland," said Neil, according to the Press Association.
However, the £68.8m figure is £25m more than Scotland would have received if it had been calculated on the basis of population share using the Barnett formula; a mechanism used by the UK Treasury to adjust the amounts of public expenditure allocated to UK states.
In light of this, Scottish secretary Michael Moore said that the Scottish government needs to be more upbeat about the funding it has been allocated.
"It takes a rather sour outlook to turn nearly £70m into a setback. Cheer up for goodness' sake and get on with delivering the improvements to our rural communities," said Moore.
"Instead of looking for the negative, they should step up and meet the challenge of matching UK government investment in broadband for our rural communities. If they do that, we can move towards achieving the target of 90 per cent of Scottish premises having superfast broadband – and everyone having access to at least 2Mbit/s – by 2015."
"If they don't invest, then they will be failing Scotland's rural communities and businesses," added Moore.
The Scottish Secretary obviously does not care very much about the country he is supposed. Like all Westminster MPs he is only interested in what his share of the trough is.By the time reasonable broadband speeds are available in rural areas most of us will be dead!!!
Posted by: Andy MacPherson 25 Aug 2011
On the basis that this figure represents only 25% of the total pot, as the formula is calculated on 25% central funding, 25% matched funding and 50% from the private sector, that's £275 million, or £50 foreach and every person in Scotland, way more generous than others in England.
Be grateful for the money and do something positive with it. We're all tired of whinging Scots, and I'm married to one!
Posted by: JonB 24 Aug 2011
I'm neither Scottish nor do I live in Scotland, but even I suspect that Michael Moore could do with a lesson in diplomacy.
I get the feeling that the majority of the Scottish electorate easily get antagonised by a London-based government lecturing them how they should receive their pronouncements!
Posted by: Tone 23 Aug 2011
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