A motion criticising  planned council tax reforms failed to pass after Holyrood's presiding officer was forced to make a casting vote on the issue.

The reform will enable councils to raise the rates by a maximum of 3% from April next year.

Homes in the bands E, F, G and H will also have the amount of money they pay increased under the plans.

In 2007, the SNP supported abolishing the tax and replacing it with a local income tax.

A Conservative amendment criticising the reforms was passed by 64 votes in favour to 63 votes against and essentially replaced the original government-backed motion which praised the changes.

When the amended motion was put to a vote it received 63 votes both in favour and against.

This forced Holyrood's presiding officer Ken Macintosh to cast a vote and he passed it in favour of the status quo, as is the convention.

Macintosh's intervention saved the government from a defeat.

The government motion was put forward earlier in the day by finance secretary Derek Mackay.

In the amendment passed, MSPs expressed their "regrets" the local government tax reforms "undermine the principle of local accountability and autonomy".

Green MSP Andy Wightman called the planned changes by the Scottish Government an "embarrassment" in the debate on its merits or otherwise.

The Scottish Conservatives' shadow finance secretary Murdo Fraser, who put forward his party's amendment, said: "Just as seriously, we oppose the approach that ministers are taking in relation to how the increase in council tax will be dealt with.

"Ministers want to create a school attainment fund with money going direct to schools, that's an ambition that we agree with.

"But they want to fund this by clawing back from councils that additional money - £100m that will be raised by these council tax revenues and take this centrally to pay directly to schools.

"There is absolutely no precedent for what is currently being proposed which undermines both local democracy and local accountability."

The Scottish Government defended their local taxation policies in Holyrood.

Mackay said: "I believe that these regulations will unlock finance for education as expressed in the SNP manifesto pledge, there will be protection in terms of the council tax reduction scheme changes as well.

"These initial reforms can be delivered at low administrative cost and achieve their purpose.

"Longer-term change, I think, will need more discussion, consensus and engagement, and I am certainly committed to that through the motion and through the engagement with political parties as we go forward.

"We have embarked on a journey in local taxation. We want to make it more progressive, deliver the steps that we got support for at the elections, then engage further on what can be delivered next in view of the report."

The SNP formed a minority government in the Scottish Parliament following May's Holyrood election.