AN internal investigation has cleared an SNP councillor of receiving, or expecting to receive, payments for mileage claims he made to Scottish Borders Council.

However, the probe by SBC’s monitoring officer Brian Frater has concluded that Councillor Alastair Cranston appears to have committed a technical breach of the councillors’ code of conduct in the way the claims were submitted.

And, as a result, the matter has now been referred to the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland (CPSPLS).

“It will be for the commissioner to decide whether any further action is necessary,” said a council spokesperson this week.

It is the second time since his election to represent Hawick and Denholm in 2012 that Mr Cranston has been referred to the ethical watchdog.

Last year the CPSPLS found, after an investigation, that the 64-year-old former Scottish rugby internationalist had breached the code of conduct by failing to declare a business interest during a debate on renewable energy.

That finding was later passed to the Standards Commission for Scotland which, following a hearing in October, suspended him for three months.

It was while suspended that a probe, at the behest of Tweeddale East councillor Stuart Bell, leader of the SNP group at Newtown, was launched into his expenses claims, around 50 of which have been rejected since his election. Out of 32 mileage claims submitted by Mr Cranston in February last year, eight were ruled inadmissible, including his bid to recover the cost of travelling from his home near Lilliesleaf to Hawick to sign a condolence book following the death of Councillor Zandra Elliot. One successful was for a trip to hand in his expenses form.