NICOLA Sturgeon is on a collision course with her Holyrood rivals over controversial plans to reform the council tax, with a majority of MSPs opposed to her proposals.

The SNP leader has insisted that she intends to deliver her manifesto, in which her party pledged to keep the council tax but increase bills for those in more expensive homes, in full despite falling short of an overall majority.

However, her local tax plans have emerged as a potential weak-spot for the SNP leader, as they are opposed by parties across the Holyrood divide. Labour, the Greens and LibDems believe they are too timid, backed new systems in their manifestos, and want the nationalists to deliver on a previous long-standing pledge to scrap the council tax. Meanwhile, the Tories remain concerned over increases in bills for families living in modest homes in expensive areas.

It potentially leaves Ms Sturgeon facing a dilemma over whether to abandon or radically alter her proposals, or make a politically uncomfortable deal with the Tories on local taxation, with Ruth Davidson's plan the closest to her own.

But the SNP showed no sign of a willingness to compromise last night, with a spokesman saying that voters had "overwhelmingly" backed its plans and any parties blocking them would have to explain why they opposed a significant boost in education spending, with the policy set to raise £100m a year.

The SNP wants to marginally increase bills by an average of £105 a year for a band E home rising to £517 for band H, end the council tax freeze but ban local authorities from raising bills by more than three per cent a year.

Willie Rennie, the Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, said: "The SNP’s council tax plans were criticised on all sides and no other party had a good word for them. They failed to deliver the radical change that had been promised. Far from scrapping council tax, twiddling bands in the way the SNP suggested would entrench it and make it far harder to secure real reforms.

"The SNP need to think about this again. We will work constructively but the SNP plans were timid and we will not support them in their current form."

Ms Sturgeon's opponents have accused her of ditching recommendations from an expert commission she set up, which called for an end to the council tax and found that those in the most expensive homes owned assets worth 15 times more than those in a band A property, but paid just three times more in council tax.

Under the new SNP policy, those in the most expensive homes will pay 3.66 more than someone in a band A property.

She also refused to order a revaluation, with home values still based on prices in 1991, despite evidence that the system places almost six in 10 properties in the wrong band meaning the occupiers are paying too little or too much.

Ms Sturgeon may also have the option of using secondary legislation to implement changes to tax bills, meaning the policy would receive less parliamentary scrutiny, although other parties could force a vote to block the changes.

The Scottish Government may need a new law to enforce a three per cent cap on council tax increases, which all MSPs would vote on.

Patrick Harvie, the Green co-convenor, has said the make-up of the new parliament presents an opportunity to question the SNP's faith in the "unfair, outdated council tax" while the Conservatives and Labour are understood to be unwilling to back the plan as it stands currently.

A senior Tory source said: "We will maintain our position. We support keeping the council tax and ending the freeze with a cap on increases at three per cent per year. But we want to make sure people in bands E and F get some protection. These are not rich folk, this would affect modest two or three bed properties in Edinburgh or Aberdeen."

A spokesman for the SNP said its local tax plans had been "overwhelmingly backed by voters in the election." He added: "Those proposals will generate an extra half a billion pounds for schools across Scotland over the next five years, and any parties opposing this will have to explain to voters why they would try and block such a significant boost to education spending."