A CLERICAL error by city council officials caused demands for an independent investigation into the SNP leadership.

Glasgow City Council mistakenly said it had no records of the Rough Sleeping Taskforce in a freedom of information (FOI) request.

It gave the impression council leader Susan Aitken and councillor Mhairi Hunter had failed to deliver on promises given last summer.

Glasgow Times:

Scottish Labour MSP Johann Lamont, above, who submitted the FOI, had called it "catastrophic" that there was no taskforce and said "people deserve to know how this happened".

However, this was based on incorrect information supplied by the council's top legal mind.

In the FOI, Carole Forrest, director of governance and solicitor to the council, said: "Following my investigation, I can confirm that the council does not hold any information relating to the Glasgow City Council Rough Sleeping Task Force, beyond the article you referenced.

"Further to this, the council's Homelessness Unit has confirmed that it isn't aware of the existence of the task force."

A council spokesman later apologised for the error.

He said: "This response was incorrect, which we apologise for.

"It appears there has been some confusion regarding which group information was being sought on - and the relationship of the Glasgow group with the national Homelessness & Rough Sleeping Action Group, which followed it."

Glasgow Times:

Ms Aitken had spoken about the Rough Sleeping Taskforce a number of times across the media.

The administrative mistake made it appear as if her words were empty.

Scottish Labour released a substantive press release on the back of it.

It included links and screenshots of articles where SNP politicians had spoken about it.

Scottish Labour has been contacted for further comment.