Greens: Fairness in tough times

How much should council tax rise? More than 5.9%? | 5.9%? | 1.9%? | It should stay the same | It should be reduced | #BHIndyRef

Budget-setting time for any large organisation is tough at the best of times, 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 while government slashes our funding.

We have a baby boom, so schools are expanding. Wonderfully, people are living longer than ever, so we need to provide more support and care for our elders. Inflation continues relentlessly year on year, so our costs go up. Yet instead of giving us more to cope with this growing demand, the coalition government has slashed our funding to the bone. According to the Financial Times, councils have been the worst-cut part of government with 55% real-terms cuts since 2010. By 2020 our main government grant will be down to zero.

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 Gross Domestic Product (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 spent 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. Bold projects like the i360 will help the city by earning £1.1 million a year from the commercial loan provided to the developers, or Circus Street with the additional New Homes Bonus and business rates they attract. These are good, but not enough: We've already taken £70 million out of our budget in efficiencies over the last three years, and more than £100 million more to be cut regardless of who wins the next election.

Since we took office as an administration, compound inflation has run at about 10%. In that time, council tax has risen just 1.96% in total and parking charges about 5%. So, in real terms, our income has fallen well behind inflation, let alone the huge scale of government cuts we face.

We have a moral duty to protect services for our most vulnerable residents, our elderly neighbours, and 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 and Crime Commissioner in Bedfordshire, we think 5.9% is a clear and fair ask to protect our most vulnerable through the toughest of times.

Jason Kitcat is the Green Party leader of Brighton and Hove City Council. For more information, visit: www.brightonhovegreens.org.

Greens: Fairness in tough times - Have Your Say

Conservatives: Reform is needed - Have Your Say

Labour: Our positive policies - Have Your Say

UKIP: Use all the council's resources - Have Your Say

Liberal Democrats: Creative ways to generate income - Have Your Say