Edinburgh City Council could be forced to reveal how much money it spent battling to take two children from their grandparents and place them with a gay couple.
Nationalist MSP Gil Paterson is himself an adoptive father and says he is angry about the way the Council has behaved.
“It is one of the most bizarre things I have come across, that social workers are breaking up a family to create a new family”, said Mr Paterson.
The Council’s actions have been widely condemned, and it will now face an investigation led by the head of its own social work department, Michelle Miller.
Mr Paterson is also calling to see an assessment from the Council of the effect being placed with adoptive parents and losing access to their grandparents would have on the children.
It has already emerged that the plans to place the children with a gay couple went ahead despite the fact that the little girl in the case, who is four years old, is “more wary” around men.
Mr Paterson is using freedom of information legislation to seek details of the Council’s legal fees after it spent two years fighting the children’s grandparents in the courts.
The grandparents were battling to be allowed to adopt the children, having been ruled out by the Council because, at 46 and 59, they were deemed too old.
Although the grandparents won every stage of their court battle, they eventually ran out of money and gave in to the Council on the understanding that they would still see the children.
But when they objected to the Council’s choice of gay adoptive parents, social workers told them to change their thinking or lose access to the children.
Mr Paterson said that to “issue ultimatums to the grandparents that they would not see their own flesh and blood again because they did not approve of the choice of parents is a clear sign that their powers go way too far”.
The grandparents are now planning to challenge the Council’s decision with the backing of an unnamed millionaire, but there are fears that they may not be able to halt the decision in time.