In the UK there is now known to be a total of over 100 local authorities with funds invested in Icelandic financial institutions. The funds in question add up to over £840 million, around £600 million of which relates to councils in England and Wales.

Scottish Councils concerned are:

• South Lanarkshire with £7.5m in Landsbanki and Landsbanki’s UK subsidiary Heritable
• South Ayrshire Council with £5m in Landsbanki
• North Ayrshire Council with £5m in Landsbanki and £10m in Glitnir
• Scottish Borders Council with £5m in Landisbanki and £5m in Heritable
• East Ayrshire Council with £3m-£5m in Icelandic financial institutions
• Moray Council with £2m in Landsbanki
• Perth and Kinross with £1m in Glitnir
• East Renfrewshire with £1 million in Heritable

The biggest single exposure is through Aberdeen City Council’s pubic/private partnership with a consortium involving £120 billion from Icelandic banks. Signed in February this year, the deal was to see the consortium financing the building of ten schools in the city - two secondary schools and seven primary schools with a further primary school to be upgraded.

The Scottish Government’s Finance Secretary, John Swinney, has written to the Chancellor, Alastair Darling, asking for assurance that local authority deposits would be protected by the state. The argument, as far as the protection of Scottish councils’ deposits are concerned, is that while local authority funding is devolved, financial regulation is reserved to Westminster - and this crisis has been directly caused by regulatory failure.

A full list of UK councils involved, with the amounts invested by each in Icelandic institutions, has been published by the BBC.