A FIFE Council scheme to maintain the gardens of the elderly and disabled will be scrapped – because it was being 'abused' and taking business away from local firms.

That will have an impact on people in the Cowdenbeath-Lochgelly area who rely on the council staff keeping their private gardens in shape.

The service was losing £20,000 a year, the cost for the 172 customers was artificially low for "unknown reasons" and many residents were not entitled to the "heavily subsidised" rate they received.

There were also questions of fairness and councillors have now agreed to cut the little known Private Garden Care Scheme, which was never advertised to the public and was carried out by the council's parks, streets and open spaces service.

A report by Ken Gourlay, head of service, asset, transportation and environment, said it "cannot continue in its current form" and explained: "The parks, streets and open spaces service can no longer subsidise the scheme and the compliance issues present significant financial and equal opportunities exposures for the council.

"Local contractors are currently losing this work and it is likely that continuance of the scheme and a Fife-wide advert will see significantly more work leaving small Fife gardening companies for the council."

He added: "Discontinuing the scheme will mean that vulnerable private tenants and house owners will have to engage private contractors at increased rates to carry out their garden care."

The council was running two schemes – Housing Service Garden Care and Private Garden Care.

The first is for "vulnerable" council house tenants who, for an annual fee, can register for grass cutting, edge strimming, weed spraying and hedge trimming.

Eligible tenants have to be over 60 or registered as disabled and in receipt of higher rate Disability Living Allowance or in receipt of Personal Independence Payment.

There must also be no other person over the age of 16 in the household able to cut the grass and hedges.

It has more than 3,000 clients, brings in an annual income of over £600,000 and all costs are covered, with Mr Gourlay stating it is "entirely viable and will continue".

Private properties were not covered by the first scheme but under the Private Garden Care scheme vulnerable homeowners or tenants of a private landlord could also get their gardens maintained directly by the parks, streets and open spaces workers if they met the same eligibility criteria.

Mr Gourlay said the latter scheme had a shortfall of £20,000 a year and added: "For unknown reasons the private garden care scheme has always been priced differently to the housing garden care scheme and these historical costing arrangements fall well short of cost recovery margins.

"This year's average charge will be £145 which can be up to half the price of a housing service garden."

He added: "The private garden service is not advertised directly to the public and is only taken up by those who are aware of the scheme's existence.

"To continue with this scheme and provide equal opportunity for prospective customers the council would need to advertise externally. This would almost certainly expose the council to state aid scrutiny, accusations of influencing Fife gardening prices and taking work away from local contractors."

Mr Gourlay said that, unlike the scheme for council tenants, "private clients are not subject to the same assessment process because the service does not have the authority and resources to verify / validate applications".

He added: "This almost certainly means that many clients on the current private list do not qualify and should not be enjoying this heavily subsidised service."

The service will be stopped in March 2019, giving vulnerable clients nine months to make alternative arrangements.