The Scottish Government and the controversial authority set up to make savings across the police service have been accused of a botched attempt at tax avoidance and "undemocratic" practices.

In the latest twist in a row over police centralisation, it has emerged the government wants the Scottish Police Services Authority (SPSA) to retain hold of all IT staff transferred from the country's eight forces in April - but not the hardware or control of contracts.

Such a split would prevent the SPSA from incurring a VAT bill of £3.5m.

However, the governing body of Scotland's largest force has accused Holyrood and SPSA of proposing "nothing better than a tax avoidance measure".

Concerns were raised at the Strathclyde Joint Police Board that the force would be held liable for contracts carried out by staff from another agency which has no public accountability.

The row comes as the Chief Constable of Strathclyde Steve House claims his force is facing a backlog of forensic results from the SPSA.

Mr House said that while the situation was not yet crit-ical it was causing concern as the delays were affecting crime figures, adding that he was in dialogue with the agency about how to improve the flow of results.

Under an agreement, all IT, including staff and property, for Scotland's police was to transfer to the SPSA, effectively becoming an external provider of the service. But the agency does not hold the same status as police boards or local authorities and must pay VAT, an issue which has dogged the SPSA since its birth and caused constern-ation among senior officers and their governing bodies.

The government had hoped its proposals, a final decision on which is expected in two months, would provide a solution by dividing up IT between staff, equipment and contracts. But at yesterday's meeting of the Strathclyde Joint Board convener Paul Rooney described the proposal as "convoluted" and said his counterparts at other boards across the country had similar concerns.

He said: "I will not be supporting the recommendations. This is nothing but a tax avoidance measure. This was supposed to be a piece of legislation but because of the tax implications we have a convoluted way to get around VAT.

"There remains the same accountability issue. How do we actually hold the SPSA to account? I don't believe there are clear streams of accountability in handing over IT."

Glasgow LibDem councillor Christopher Mason is a member of Strathclyde Joint Police Board. He argued the public should not be excluded when the issue was discussed and said the government should "pay up and shut up" or amend legislation and give IT back to individual forces.

He said: "Outsourcing ICT makes no more sense than outsourcing cleaning of hospitals, a policy now being reversed. IT is integral to how a police force operates. This is the civil servants dictating and this would be absolutely undemocratic. It's a tawdry request."

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "These proposals would save more than £3m a year in VAT. They were developed in discussion with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and support of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland."

David Mulhern, SPSA chief executive, said: "The VAT issue is something we have been working closely on to ensure we don't miss savings possible from delivering a service once to Scottish policing rather than eight times by each individual force."