News: Brighton and Hove City Council leader Jason Kitcat

Budget setting time for any large organisation is tough at the best of times, what with competing demands to manage and a limited pot of cash to go around. But for councils it is harder than ever right now: we are still expected to deliver over 800 services to our growing number of citizens whilst government slashes our funding.

We also have the least freedom to raise finances ourselves of any system of local government in the developed world. In Sweden, local government sets taxes equivalent to 15.9% of GDP, 15.3% in Canada, 10.9% in Germany and 5.8% in France. The proportion of tax set locally in the UK? A waif-like 1.7% which means councils like ours have few choices for raising new income.

We do have some discretion over fees and charges, but you can only get so much out of charging more for weddings, funerals and pest control. Other charges, like for parking, are strictly regulated so that any surplus must be spent on transport-related matters. Ours is mainly on the £10 million a year cost of concessionary bus passes for pensioners and those with disabilities.

So we have few powers to raise totally new sources of income. We’ve already taken £70 million out of our budget in efficiencies over the last three years, with over £100 million more to be cut regardless of who wins the next election.

We have a moral duty to protect services for our most vulnerable residents, our elderly neighbours, our children. That’s why we are proposing a 5.9% council tax referendum to ask your support for putting a bit more in the budget to help protect those essential services. If the just announced 15.8% referendum is good enough for a Labour Police & Crime Commissioner in Bedfordshire, we think 5.9% is a clear and fair ask to protect our most vulnerable through the toughest of times.