City Parking has cost Glasgow £4million in bail-outs since it was set up as an arm's length organisation five years ago.

The business, which has never posted a profit, got £2m last year, including £750,000 to pay off its entire management team.

Earlier this year the council confirmed City Parking would need a cash injection of another £2m to help it renegotiate its overdraft facility.

City Parking is designed to save the local authority money.

It paid for a facelift of its off-street multi-storey car parks by mortgaging the assets just as the economic downturn hit the parking sector.

Council boss Gordon Matheson, left, continues to praise the "bold decision" by former leader Steven Purcell to create City Parking because it allowed the council to borrow money that would otherwise have been unavailable.

City Parking has still to file its 2011-12 accounts. But council figures suggest it ended last year more than £1m in the red.

The business is now officially valued as worth MINUS £4.3m, something industry sources stress would be unthinkable in the private parking sector.