AN extra £80 million will be used to help close the attainment gap between rich and poor pupils after Holyrood passed the new Scottish Budget last night.

However, critics hit out at the financial plans, with hundreds of trade unionists protesting outside the parliament claiming that council settlements will see schools and services suffer a £350m cut.

The 2016-17 deal includes a commitment to maintaining the council-tax freeze, integrating health and social care services and maintaining the pupil-teacher ratio in schools.

However, Mark Ferguson of Unison said local authorities need more money to avoid “cuts to services for disabled people, older people, education, youth services, school support, libraries, road repairs and much more”.

The Scottish Government will provide an additional £80m for its Attainment Scotland Fund over the next three years.

Finance Secretary John Swinney said this would “help ensure that every child has the opportunity to realise their potential”.

However, Labour leader Kezia Dugdale branded the spending plans an “austerity budget” and called on the SNP administration to back her party’s proposal for a 1p tax rise.

Defending his decision to keep the Scottish rate of income tax at 10p, the same as in the rest of the UK, Mr Swinney said suggestions that his budget would cost thousands of public-sector jobs were “utterly exaggerated”.

He said: “It will be of limited reassurance to our pensioners or our newly-qualified teachers or our postal workers to know that people on higher salaries would be paying more in increased taxes than they will be as they see their weekly budget come under increased strain.

‘’They won’t care that others are paying more, they’ll care that they are paying more.’’

He told MSPs he intended to double the funds that remain to be spent through the attainment fund for schools from £80 million to £160 million over the next three years.

Additional measures in the budget include £200m for six new NHS elective treatment centres and a new three per cent charge for buyers purchasing a second home or a buy-to-let worth more than £40,000.

Swinney also committed to protect college funding, continue free tuition and almost double free nursery provision during the next parliament to 1,140 hours.

The budget also includes plans to increase spending on affordable housing by £90m, invest £130m in digital infrastructure and review the business rates system.

Vonnie Sandlan, president of the National Union of Students in Scotland, said: “While it is a really positive move that the Scottish Budget has protected funding for colleges, which is recognition of the important role they play in our education system, this budget was a missed opportunity to address some of the big inequalities and problems that exist in the student support system.

“Ahead of today’s vote, NUS Scotland, and students across Scotland, have been campaigning for increased investment in the further education support system, which we know is overstretched and underfunded, year after year.”