FOUR Scottish local authorities have renegotiated or are renegotiating debts with commercial banks in a bid to save millions each year in interest payments, The Ferret can reveal.
City of Edinburgh, Fife and West Dunbartonshire councils have become the first in Scotland to renegotiate a significant portion of Lender Option Borrower Option (Lobo) loans. North Lanarkshire Council is in the process of renegotiating Lobo debt.
Campaigners have welcomed the moves to save public money, which follow Lobo renegotiations by English councils. They are also calling on other councils such as Glasgow that haven’t cut the cost of their loans to take action.
Lobos can attract interest rates of up to 8%, far higher than the rate paid on government borrowing, which is typically around 2 to 3%. Scottish local authorities have accumulated £2.3 billion of Lobo debt and repayments cost £119 million per year over 50-60 years.
Councils were initially attracted to Lobos because commercial banks, most commonly Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Barclays, offered teaser rates, which means the initial interest rate paid on the loan was less than the cost of government borrowing.
But clauses in the Lobo contracts mean the banks can hike up the rate at predetermined fixed points, with councils either having to accept the new rate or pay off the whole loan.
There is no specific regulatory oversight of council Lobo lending. Following a Channel 4 documentary in 2015, a UK government inquiry into Lobos was set-up but subsequently dropped.
The additional cost of Lobo debt repayments to cash-strapped Scottish councils is significant. In December 2018 workers’ cooperative Research for Action estimated that if all Scottish councils re-negotiated their £2.3bn collective Lobo debt, they could save £67.5m per year.
Over the lifetime of the debt this would result in a saving of £2.6bn, more than the original loan. It is also more than the £2.4bn annual council tax revenue that all Scottish local authorities took in 2018-19.
Edinburgh Council, which had the 11th highest Lobo debt of all UK councils, confirmed that a deal had been reached with RBS to terminate four “inverse floater” Lobo loans.
These are different from conventional Lobos in that the interest rate increases when Bank of England interest rates fall. With the bank’s base rates falling to historically low levels in the decade following the 2008 financial crash, the cost of inverse floater Lobos has rocketed.
The terms of the renegotiation deal is protected by commercial confidentiality. But Research for Action, which produces research to support economic and environmental justice, uncovered the conditions of Edinburgh’s four inverse floater Lobos.
READ MORE: Illegal Scottish fishing in protected areas is poorly enforced
Agreed in February 2010, the contracts included “breakage fees” of £94.3m for exiting the loans outwith pre-agreed call dates, more than double the loans’ £40m value.
Other councils also told The Ferret that they had renegotiated their Lobos. Fife Council, which has the eighth highest Lobo debt in the UK, said it had renegotiated its £357m loan with RBS.
West Dunbartonshire Council said that renegotiations had taken place with a commercial lender other than RBS, resulting in a reduced interest rate. The council has £93m worth of Lobos.
North Lanarkshire Council, which has the sixth largest Lobo debt in Scotland, said that a renegotiation of its £98m Lobo debt was “currently ongoing”.
Scotland’s three largest local authorities could make the most savings from renegotiating their Lobos.
Glasgow could save over £10.7m per annum, Fife £8.7m and Edinburgh £7.9m.
READ MORE: Marine industries must pay to protect wildlife, say environmentalists
Those savings would be equivalent to covering the cost of nearly half of the £22.6m cuts made to Glasgow council’s 2019-20 budget and nearly a quarter of the £33m cuts made to Edinburgh’s budget. They would more than cover the costs of Fife’s £4m budget cuts.
The total potential saving for Glasgow City Council is £451m, which makes up the bulk of the £548m payout to women council workers for the historic equal pay claim, agreed in January.
However, five of the top-ten Scottish councils with the highest Lobo debts, including the largest, Glasgow, confirmed that they were not currently pursuing debt renegotiation. One council, Inverclyde, saved £30,000 by renegotiating a small £3m Lobo last year, but has no current plans to pursue debt renegotiation further.
COUNCILS yet to move on debt renegotiation are set to pay an even greater financial penalty, after UK Chancellor Sajid Javid hiked the interest rate paid on Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) debt from 1.8% to 2.8% earlier this month.
The PWLB is responsible for government borrowing to councils. The Local Government Association estimated that the average cost of the PWLB rate hike to UK councils will be £70m per year.
Joel Benjamin, a campaigner at Research for Action said: “For struggling local authorities and taxpayers, it’s great to see Scottish councils moving to cancel and refinance their Lobo loans, a year after English councils did the same.
“Unfortunately, the recent indefensible decision by Sajid Javid and the Treasury to hike PWLB interest rates by 1% means those councils like Glasgow yet to cancel and refinance their Lobo debt via the PWLB will now struggle to do so.
“Scottish taxpayers should now demand a political solution to the Lobo problem that tackles the latest roadblock imposed by the Treasury.”
The move to re-negotiate Lobos by the four Scottish councils comes after Northamptonshire and Kent councils agreed a deal on inverse floater Lobo loans with RBS in October last year.
Since then, every local authority in England which has inverse floater Lobos with RBS has either begun or completed re-financing negotiations, while Newham Council is suing the bank over the terms of the loan.
It’s only now that some Scottish councils have begun to pursue such a re-negotiation strategy.
Writing about Edinburgh’s renegotiation deal on CommonSpace, Green councillor Gavin Corbett, who sits on the council’s finance and resources committee, argued that Scottish councils have been “behind the curve” on renegotiating Lobos.
Corbett said the council only began to look into the problem after he raised it with senior staff at an August meeting of the council. By September, a follow up report to the committee outlined the terms they had agreed with RBS for exiting the loans.
Corbett calculated that failing to renegotiate the four inverse floater Lobos would have cost Edinburgh council around £2.4m per year.
RBS has faced criticism from its own shareholders for “mis-selling”
Lobo loans to councils. “We work on a case-by-case basis with all our customers and as ever, arrangements are confidential,” said a spokesperson for the bank.
“We value all our customers and are open to discussing restructuring or refinancing when circumstances change.”
Local authorities have struggled to cope with a significant reduction in their budget since the beginning of the austerity era at the turn of the decade, despite a slight recovery over the past two financial years. Debt is a growing cost on council balance sheets.
On 12 October 2019 campaigners from the Solidarity Against Neoliberal Extremism collective organised a conference on Glasgow’s debt, which has the third highest Lobo debt of all UK local authorities. One of the organisers, Penny Cole, said she believed it may not be the right time to renegotiate the loans, but that cancellation or a major write-down of Glasgow’s Lobos should be explored.
“The question is really are they legal,” said Cole. “And if it can be shown they are not, could we walk away from them or at least pay them off really cheaply with no penalties?”
WHAT COUNCILS SAID ABOUT LOANS
City of Edinburgh Council: “While these loans formed a small part of the council’s overall debt portfolio, we have redeemed our inverse Lobo loans which will generate annual savings ..."
Fife Council: ’’There has been re-negotiation with RBS on the Lobo loan we had with them. We continually review these loans ...”
West Dunbartonshire Council: “Renegotiations have taken place with a commercial lender other than RBS, resulting in a reduced interest rate. The council actively reviews rates for current loans ..."
North Lanarkshire Council: “We consider opportunities for restructuring our existing debt portfolio in order to achieve best value for the council, some of which include this type of loan. Due to the commercially sensitive nature of these financial arrangements, it would be inappropriate to release the details of any negotiations currently on-going.”
Inverclyde Council: “The council is always looking for debt restructuring opportunities whether loans be Lobos or conventional borrowing. We are not actively pursuing any opportunities at present but did buyout one £3 million loan last year.”
City of Glasgow Council: “Nothing on the go just now” on debt renegotiation.
Highland Council: “There has not been any renegotiation of terms for any existing Highland Council Lobos.”
Aberdeenshire Council: “We’re not currently planning any renegotiations – we would only consider renegotiating at specific break points within the agreed terms of a loan.”
Aberdeen Council: “The council is comfortable with its Lobo loans as they stand and is not seeking to renegotiate any of the contracts.”
East Ayrshire: “No immediate plans for renegotiation.”
The Ferret is an editorially independent, not-for-profit co-operative run by its journalists and subscribers. You can find it at https://theferret.scot/ and can subscribe for £3 a month here: https://theferret.scot/subscribe/
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel