Brighton & Hove City Council leader Jason Kitcat on budget proposals for 2014

Councils across the country face steep cuts in government funding plus increasing demand for services as our demographics change. These pressures, plus inflation, are putting council budgets under incredible strain.
In the face of these challenges, not of our making, we are proposing a budget which protects essential services for residents, visitors and businesses. For example we propose to keep all libraries and children’s centres open. We also propose to freeze parking fees in council-run car parks for a year.

Key to our strategy is working better across departments and other public sector organisations such as the police and the NHS to make the most of what we have. We are continuing to increase productivity, save money and reduce our carbon footprint by cutting our utility bills, using new technology and vacating unnecessary buildings that were accumulated over the years.

The austerity consensus between the Tories and Labour in Westminster means that it’s crucial that we don’t just look to next year, but long term to secure a sustainable future for the city. For this reason, we’re investing funds towards key projects such as rebuilding the arches on the seafront, and replacing street lamps with newer more efficient ones.

Our proposal is for council tax to remain below inflation with a 2% increase. While council tax is an imperfect way of funding local services, we are asking that residents contribute a small amount to help offset just a fraction of the government cuts.

Once again, to support citizen involvement, we’ve published our draft budget two months before it is decided by all councillors. No matter what, there is less money for us to spend but more demand for services. All councilors face tough choices when we set the budget in February 2014.

This is just the start of the debate about how local services should be provided in our city.
To find out more and join the debate visit www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/bhbudget