KEZIA Dugdale’s top official is at the centre of a cash row that has split one of Labour’s most marginal seats.

Scottish Labour general secretary Brian Roy is facing questions over how his dad Frank Roy spent around £1400 owed to Scottish Labour HQ on his own re-election campaign.

The money represented two years of affiliation fees owed to Labour HQ by Frank Roy's constituency Labour party (CLP) in Motherwell & Wishaw.

First elected an MP in 1997, Frank Roy stood again in the seat again last May.

At the time, Brian Roy had newly taken over as Scottish general secretary and treasurer.

However a leaked internal audit shows the Motherwell & Wishaw CLP hadn’t paid its annual subscription to Labour HQ since 2013, despite having funds to do so.

The report states: “No Labour affiliation fees have been paid since 2013 despite having a balance of £8737.70 in the CLP account in 2013. This leaves the CLP in debt of around £2000. The balance of the CLP account on 28/9/15 was £109.48.”

Although failing to pay the fees to HQ didn’t disqualify Frank Roy from standing, it did leave more in the CLP account to spend on the election.

The fall-out from the audit is now dividing the CLP and the Labour administration on North Lanarkshire Council, with many members furious at Frank Roy’s election agent Paul Kelly, who has been accused of failing to explain the state of the CLP’s finances.

Kelly, last week elected the council's deputy leader, was CLP chair during the election.

The audit report says that in early 2014, the CLP’s general purpose bank account of around £3200 was merged with a previously separate election account of £2800.

“There are no minutes recording that this change of policy was agreed by the CLP,” it says.

The resulting single account was then cleaned out in the election - again without any minutes of the CLP agreeing to it - as Roy defended his 16,800-vote majority.

The report states: “There are no minutes of the CLP agreeing to the level of expenditure to be used on the General Election.”

Roy’s campaign cost £13,701, compared to £6,852 for the SNP’s Marion Fellows, who nevertheless won by 11,900 votes.

Roy got £4703 worth of staff support from Scottish Labour HQ, but the bulk of his campaign money, around £8600, came from draining the CLP account.

The total outlay was twice that of the 2010 election, when Roy’s campaign cost £6766.

The political co-ordinator of Better Together, Roy is now campaign director of the Scottish arm of Britain Stronger in Europe.

The failure to pay affiliation fees emerged last week after an audit into Motherwell & Wishaw CLP, which found “total unknown deposits” of £4474 were paid into its bank account last year without explanation, and “total unknown expenditure” of £2108 left it.

The auditor noted: “These matters were raised by CLP members on several occasions from July 2015 and as far as I am aware the issues have not been properly addressed.”

A senior Labour source said the draining of the CLP account in election, including affiliation fees, had left the local party struggling going into the Holyrood election, when Labour MSP John Pentland is defending a 587-vote majority in Motherwell & Wishaw.

The insider said: “There are very unhappy people here. The council Labour group is very fractious. We can’t even pay our bills far less run an election campaign.”

Kelly did not returns calls. Frank Roy could not be contacted yesterday.

A Scottish Labour spokesman said: "The Labour party is working with this CLP to address any outstanding issues, including payment of affiliation fees."