Cuts in government grant mean that people in Brighton and Hove will pay more for less in future, council leader Warren Morgan warned today (Wednesday 24 February).
Councillor Morgan was speaking a day before Brighton and Hove City Council meets to set its annual budget – for the year from April – and the council tax.
Council tax bills are expected to rise by almost 4 per cent, with 2 per cent of the rise set aside for adult social care.
But few believe that the extra funds for adult social care will be enough to cope with the combination of rising demand, cost pressures, including wage reforms, and cuts in government grant.
Councillor Morgan said: “There is no doubt that the tens of millions cut from our funding and the increases in council tax imposed by the government to fund social care will mean residents will be paying more for less in the future.
“However we pledged to get the basics right and we are working to ensure that what the council does continue to deliver is delivered well. City tracker figures show we are already having an impact.
“Unlike the Greens, who have walked away from the budget process, we have wiped out an £8 million overspend and found £600,000 to put back into services, maintaining things like the park rangers and the playbus and we are saving almost £2 million in management costs.
“Nine out of ten councils are putting council tax up by 3.99 per cent and increasing their parking fees, so we are not alone, but working with voluntary sector and local business partners, and using ideas from our City Innovation Challenge, we hope to find new ways of ensuring as many public services as possible continue despite the cuts.”
Earlier, Labour said that it had met the challenge of finding £25 million in cuts imposed on Brighton and Hove City Council by the Conservative government.
Councillor Morgan said: “We have listened and we have acted.
“We have closed the £9 million budget gap we were faced with when taking office and we are putting forward a lawful, balanced and responsible budget in the face of huge Tory cuts to local councils.
“I call on the other parties to back it.
“We have worked hard to reduce the cuts to services like the park rangers, to protect the bus services and community grants that people rely on and to ensure that our vital care services have the funds they need to do their work.
“The government has forced all city and county councils into a 4 per cent council tax increase and into making deep cuts to the services we all use, so I have joined with politicians from across the political spectrum in saying enough is enough, this can’t go on.
“I hope the government will have a change of heart but in the meantime we will give as much certainty as we can through a four-year budget plan, get as many innovative ideas as we can through our City Innovation Challenge and focus what resources the city has on helping people who are struggling financially, especially through the work of our Fairness Commission.
“There’s no escaping the very challenging funding situation for our day-to-day services presented in our council budget today but there is another story – one of ambition, innovation and investment.”
Gill Mitchell, who chairs the council’s Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee, said: “Despite having to reduce budgets by £4 million in this area of the council over the next four years as part of closing a government-imposed £68 million council funding gap, critical services have been protected, investment is being made and income-generating services are under way.”
Councillor Mitchell added that Labour had listened to what people had said about the services that they valued. As a result, she said, the council had been able to
- Maintain council-subsidised bus services
- Keep the current hours for those using a concessionary bus pass
- Maintain seven posts in the park rangers service
- Create a specific budget for the repair and replacement of communal bins
- Avoid cutting the budget for public toilets, instead investing £1.5 million to bring them up to standard
In the final budget papers for the meeting tomorrow, the Labour Group has also promised
- A freeze on parking permit charges for low-emission vehicles and car clubs
- A reprieve for the popular children’s Playbus
- Funding to improve standards in private rented housing
- More money for animal welfare, for supporting survivors of domestic violence and for engagement
Councillor Morgan said: “We have worked until the last minute to ensure every penny available went back into services and the priorities we set as an administration when we were elected last May.
“I hope the opposition parties on the council will put politics aside and back these budget proposals for the good of the city.”
But if Labour had become the Government, it would have continued these misbegotten “austerity” cuts to services. England is diminished. The future looks grim.
“Funding to improve standards in private rented housing.” The council should start with improving the quality of housing it provides and that it purchases from Private landlords itself. Look at the dreadful quality of “B&B” accommodation BHCC happily shells out exorbitant amounts for for “temporary, emergency” housing (£350/week for grimy bedsits). Council has no standards whatsoever. Would not keep a dog in most of those awful places, much less dump people there (especially mentally ill people as Sussex Partnership does).
The city council, of whatever hue, is wasteful.. All the way through this recession it’s spent public money on vanity projects and then bleated poverty.
The council tax has risen year after year well above the rate of inflation or increase in peoples income. And for what.. No appreciable change.
Just more politicking
I want a council, all the council, to be dedicated to running this city NOT pursuing the narrow party political agendas of whatever gang of charlatans are in power.