Pickles piles pressure on Brighton and Hove Greens to freeze council tax

The government is stepping up pressure on Brighton and Hove City Council to freeze council tax.

Eric Pickles, the government minister responsible for councils, said that councillors had a moral duty to accept a one-off grant payment in exchange for a council tax freeze.

But one local politician dismissed the government’s offer as a headline-grabbing gimmick.

Councillor Jason Kitcat, the council’s cabinet member for finance, said: “It’s like a payday loan in that you get a bit of cash upfront but you’re worse off in the long run.”

The Green administration in Brighton and Hove wants to put up council tax by 3.5 per cent. A higher rise would trigger a local referendum.

The council was the first of more than a dozen local authorities to reject the one-off grant which is estimated to be worth £3 million to Brighton and Hove.

Three of the councils resisting the inducement are Conservative-controlled.

Meanwhile, more than 140 local authorities have indicated that they will take the cash and freeze council tax levels in their area.

Mr Pickles, the Communities and Local Government Secretary, said: “Freezing council tax is practical help every councillor can offer their constituents.

“A vote against the council tax freeze is a vote for punishing tax rises.

“Local taxpayers will remember that decision next time they cast their vote at the ballot box.

“Councillors have a moral duty to sign up to keep down the cost of living.

“Anything less is a kick in the teeth to hard-working decent taxpayers.”

Councillor Kitcat said that the government’s offer seemed attractive on the surface but it came with strings attached.

He said: “If we took it, we would have to cut £5.4 million more next year or put up council tax by 8 per cent.

“We believe people want to protect services and jobs and that’s the approach we’re taking.”

Councillor Kitcat said that the council tax freeze last year was funded differently. The council was compensated for its loss over a minimum of four years.

He acknowledged that the message from Mr Pickles had an attractive simplicity but said: “Simple messages sometimes hide more complex realities.

“One of things to come out of the budget consultation is that people recognise it’s very complex.”

The Greens’ decision to turn down government money in exchange for freezing council tax has already been criticised by the Prime Minister.

David Cameron called it a huge mistake when asked about it by Simon Kirby, the Conservative MP for Brighton Kemptown.

But Councillor Kitcat said that the government’s offer was fundamentally dishonest as it gave taxpayers the impressions that they would be better off when the opposite was the case.

The council was required to provide a lot of services by law, he said, and there were many other services that were traditionally provided by councils.

“”Are we too big and do we do too much? That’s a good question which we should be asking.

“Do we want councils to run libraries? Some councils are closing theirs down. We’re building a new one in Woodingdean.

“Schools, libraries, hospitals … these are things we’ve decided that the government should provide in our democracy and we need to pay for that.

“And we’re going to have to do some things differently.”

He cited Shopmobility and City in Bloom as non-statutory services that had been funded by the council but would have to find a way of running with less public money.

He said that the Greens had drawn up a two-year budget for the first time to enable a proper review of the council and its finances.

He dismissed suggestions that cuts in the budget had come from salami slicing, adding: “We’re fundamentally looking at what we do and how.”

He said that services were being reviewed to reduce and eliminate overlaps and duplication wherever possible.

“We’re focusing on more prevention to stop people ending up needing the more expensive forms of care, he said.

And he defended the cost and extent of the council’s senior management, saying that £2.5 million had been taken out of the senior management budget this year and more the year before.

The Greens have pointed out that the poorest receive benefits that protect them from a rise in council tax, meaning that the burden would fall on those most able to pay.

Councillor Kitcat said: “The average rise will be the equivalent of 57p a week more to protect the services that people value.

“The head of the Local Government Association is a Conservative (Sir Merrick Cockell) and he said quite clearly that the long-term consequences of accepting the grant (to freeze council tax) are negative.

“We’re trying to do the best we can for the people in this city.”

Yesterday The Mail on Sunday newspaper pointed out that the government is putting up business rates by 5.6 per cent which it said was putting jobs and entire companies at risk.