Dear Labour colleagues

In the coming weeks we will be immersed in debating proposals for the next two years’ worth of council budgets. This will be incredibly challenging as the coalition government is forcing massive cuts on our council. The council will have to reduce its spending by about £20m this year and £17m next year.

The local Conservative party clearly support the cuts being imposed by the coalition government. They would like us to cut an additional £5.4m in services over two years to pay for a one-off council tax freeze.

Greens believe in protecting public services. What does Labour believe? We call on Labour Councillors to work constructively with us to set a budget which protects services and refutes Tory policies.

Residents, staff and service users need a clear, orderly budget process in these difficult times. Will Labour Councillors put tribal party politics to one side and work with Greens to protect vital public services, especially for the most vulnerable in our city?

Yours sincerely
The Green Group of Councillors
Brighton & Hove City Council

They aren’t happy about my statement in relation to their campaigning in the Westbourne by-election. Rather than sensibly backing away from their falsehoods, I shall have to expose them further in public. Labour were serially dishonest in both last year’s general election and the local elections this year. It did them a great disservice and the results spoke volumes as to how ineffective their approach was. I suppose I should be thankful as Greens did well out of it. But I think we are all reduced when political discourse descends into outright falsehood. Each party have their own great traditions and histories – they should build on that to make their distinctive cases for how they can improve the city. Lying about the competition doesn’t help the voters decide and it doesn’t move the debate forward.

Let’s look at the claims, some of which are on their Facebook page, others are in their leaflets which aren’t online.

LABOUR CLAIM: Greens refused government funding for a new school in Hove.

GREEN ANSWER: False. The government aren’t offering funding. If we want a new school then all we are allowed to do is run a contest for which independent providers bid to run an academy funded direct from central government, not through the council. There would be no democratic control over this school and they wouldn’t need to use our city-wide admissions scheme, so there would be no guarantee it would solve the problems. Labour’s “proposed co-operative school” would be an academy which teaching unions, the Greens and now even Jamie Oliver* oppose as a retrograde step for public education.

Furthermore Labour were the ones who caused the schools shortage. When in administration they ignored warnings from midwives and GPs that a baby boom was starting in 2005/6. Even worse, only five years ago, they actually closed a major secondary school in Brighton (Comart). Which is why there aren’t enough places to absorb pupil numbers.

There are actually enough school places for everyone but the real issue is that they might not be at a parents’ first choice school. Building a new school would not solve that. We are working hard to solve the issues in the school system. Labour have some gall claiming to have a solution to the problem they caused!

*Oliver has flagged that academies don’t need to adhere to national school food standards, and many academies aren’t.

LABOUR CLAIM: The Greens promised a new secondary school and new primary school for Hove.

GREEN ANSWER: Debatable. We did not promise these in the May Council elections. We said it during the 2010 parliamentary elections before the Tories came to power and stopped local authority school funding. We did not get elected to the City Council on this ticket as by then we knew the school-building programme had been ground to a halt by Michael Gove.

LABOUR CLAIM: Labour will put an end to portakabin classrooms.

GREEN ANSWER: False. There are no portakabin classrooms in Hove at the moment. This is just dishonest scaremongering. And Labour are the smallest party on the council, so how exactly would they propose to change matters?

LABOUR CLAIM: Greens have plans to cut Sure Start funding at Conway Court

GREEN ANSWER: False. The Sure Start programme created children’s centres. There are no threats to the Conway Court children’s centre which was funded by Sure Start.

LABOUR CLAIM: Labour are “campaigning to protect the NHS from Tory cuts and privatisation.”

GREEN ANSWER: Highly debatable. When Cllr Sven Rufus and I presented a motion to full council opposing NHS privatisation, the Labour group of councillors voted AGAINST it and the most vociferous speech against the motion was by a Labour councillor.

Furthermore BBC Newsnight and the Spectator have both shown how Labour’s own economic plans are less than 1% of GDP away from the Tory cuts plans now underway. They planned to cut by nearly as much.

LABOUR CLAIM: Labour are against Green’s “record Council Tax”

GREEN ANSWER: Really?! In the ten years of Labour control, council tax rose 120%. Greens are proposing a below inflation increase of 3.5%. If Labour are supporting the Tory government’s tax freeze grant then they should list the £5.4m of additional service cuts they support – which is what the council would need to do to be able to afford the grant, or an at least 8% increase in council tax the year after. Which is it Labour?

Labour state that Tory cuts should not be passed on to residents through council tax. They also claim to be against inflationary increases in parking fees, yet when in administration Labour increased tax and parking charges with great gusto. Balancing the budget in the face of cuts with no increases in fees or council tax would require devastating service cuts. I look forward to Labour explaining which ones, I’m sure the unions would like to know too.

The table below shows the council tax increases for every Labour-led budget in Brighton & Hove since the city council was created. The Green proposal of 3.5% is below EVERY SINGLE ONE of their tax increases.

** Includes notional adjustment for Fire

LABOUR CLAIM: Greens are pushing Brighton & Hove to be the only council in the country to refuse the government tax freeze grant.

GREEN ANSWER: False. A recent survey showed that up to 20% of councils are likely to refuse the tax freeze grant. We are not the only ones and this has been widely reported in all the major media.

LABOUR CLAIM: Greens promised to “resist all cuts”.

GREEN ANSWER: False. We didn’t and I have repeatedly told Labour this is a lie, but they persist. As Labour well know, the law has changed and if councillors do not set a budget then the government will impose one on us. Greens promised to “resist, to the greatest extent possible, the service cuts and privatisation imposed [on us]” and that is what we will do.

LABOUR CLAIM: Why did the Greens say before the elections they wanted Brighton and Hove to be a “zero waste city”, but now insist that is “clearly impossible”?

GREEN ANSWER: False. We have never said it is “clearly impossible”. They also seem to not know what this refers to. In 2008 the then Labour environment minister Hilary Benn announced that councils could get pilot funding to become a “zero waste place”. Our proposal was to achieve this funding, however the new government have currently stopped this programme. We remain absolutely committed to reducing waste.

LABOUR CLAIM: Greens set the date of the by-election.

GREEN ANSWER: False. The by-election was called by the unexpected resignation of a Conservative councillor. When the by-election is held is at the discretion of the Returning Officer (the Council’s Chief Executive) within limits set down by law. It is NOT at the discretion of the Green administration, which would clearly be inappropriate.

LABOUR CLAIM: Greens wanted the by-election early to avoid debating the budget.

GREEN ANSWER: False. The budget will be published on 1st December, the earliest a detailed budget plan has ever been published by this council. We want to debate and consult on the proposals. This date is well before any possible date for the by-election could have been.

I make that 8 outright lies and the rest are debatable. So no Labour, I won’t retract my comments. But now that I’ve pointed out your dishonesty, will you may any retractions or correction?

UPDATE: To include link explaining Jamie Oliver’s views on academies.

UPDATE 2: Added table of Labour council tax increases during their time in administration.

On the face of it a clever way to show that Conservatives care about the squeezed middle classes in the face of increased inflation. Yet the harsh reality is this scheme doesn’t make financial sense for councils, and is yet another way the government are slashing budgets for local services. And in the long run it would likely lead to even greater council tax increases.

It’s absolutely clear to me that Greens were voted the largest party on Brighton & Hove City Council because of our commitment to public services and resisting the Tory agenda of “small government”. Residents expect us to use our Green values to fight for the fairest possible settlement in the face of unprecedented cuts from central government.

The tax freeze grant is another attack, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, which we oppose.

Why is it bad for the council? Because it would over 2 years cost us £5.4m, and more over the longer term. Let’s explore that in detail with an imaginary council called Picklesville with a £100 of income this year from council tax.

For the next year the councillors in Picklesville can either take the government’s grant worth a 2.5% increase or go with the Green option of a 3.5% increase.

If they take the government route they will receive £100 + £2.50 = £102.50 (£2.50 being the 2.5% grant from government).

If they go the Green route they will receive £100 + £3.50 = £103.50 (£3.50 being the 3.5% increase on council tax).

The next year the Picklesville councillors again need to decide on council tax. If they went for the government grant, that is now gone. So to catch up in the face of continued reductions in their formula grant (the other main source of income for councils other than charges) they decide to put council tax up by the maximum allowed, which is 3.5%. However because of last year’s freeze the starting point hasn’t moved. So they will receive £100 + £3.50 = £103.50 (£3.50 being the 3.5% increase on council tax over the previous year).

If they had gone the Green route then, still facing huge cuts in formula grant, they also decide to increase council tax by 3.5% so they receive £103.50 + £3.62 = £107.12 (£3.62 being the 3.5% increase on council tax over the previous year), quite a bit more than the other option.

These are of course hugely simplified numbers, but if you think in millions of pounds you can see that just freezing for one year (which every council already did for this financial year) leaves councils way behind each year, even if they keep increasing council tax. For Brighton & Hove accepting the one year freeze grant would mean £5.4m less income over 2 years. As we need to find savings of about £35m for the next two financial years, that £5.4m is money we can ill afford to give up.

With inflation running at over 5% and councils not allowed to increase council tax beyond 3.5%, council income is falling further and further behind the increasing costs our service providers are experiencing, even if we do increase tax by as much as we’re allowed.

The difference for the average council tax paying household in the city will be 57p a week, but the council can collectively use all those extra pennies to great use in protecting services and jobs the Tories would rather we axed. I’ve challenged the local Tories to list the extra £5.4m of service cuts they would propose if we adopt the grant as they are advocating.

Brighton & Hove is not the kind of place where we want to give up on the elderly, marginalised or vulnerable – those most in need of help. We believe in civilisation, in public service and the greater good.

A £3m grant that loses us £5.4m is not a good deal, how could it be? Accepting it would be agreeing to more Tory cuts, and acquiescing to the cynical politics of the Coalition government. As a Green, I resist.

(For the next 6 days you can watch the BBC Politics Show’s take on this here from the 38 minute mark)

UPDATED 26/11/2011: Revised figures now show the lost income from taking the grant would be £5.4m (this post originally had the figure at £4m). I also have clarified the difference in cost to be 57p per household (previously I referred to tax payer which is imprecise as council tax applies to properties and not people).

Local Government Chronicle has also shot a hole through Tory rhetoric that “Greens are the only ones” taking this approach, their survey shows 20% of councils (2/3rd of which are Tory led) are likely to reject the freeze grant. Furthermore many who said they would take the grant admitted it would lead to higher tax in future years. Exactly as I have said all along…

UPDATE 5/12/11: This interesting piece shows that most of the freeze grant has been taken from local government pensions funds. Completely unethical especially given the government rhetoric about the funds being a ‘burden’ which need more contributions.

Ideally there should be complete local control over land taxation (which is effectively what council tax is) but failing that we should at least be given discretion over the discounts. Tories claim to believe in localism and that they are devolving power and autonomy down to councils. Yet they are imposing massive, unnecessary reductions on our budgets whilst failing to give us any meaningful new powers or freedoms in relation to how we generate income. Ending the nationally imposed 10% minimum discount would be a small step in the right direction.

You can read the formal press release and the full letter is copied below.

 

Cllr Jason Kitcat
Brighton & Hove City Council
Kings House, Grand Avenue
Hove BN3 2LS

The Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP
Secretary of State for Communities & Local Government
Department for Communities and Local Government
Eland House, Bressenden Place
London
SW1E 5DU

28th September 2011

 

Dear Mr Pickles

 

SECOND HOME COUNCIL TAX DISCOUNTS

I am writing to ask that you give councils the opportunity to opt out of providing second home council tax discounts if they so wish.

As you will know councils face challenging financial times due to your government’s imposed budget reductions, demographic pressures and inflation, particularly on energy costs. Furthermore given the desperate shortage of affordable homes, we believe some councils including Brighton & Hove City Council would, given the powers, opt to eliminate second home council tax discounts. This would signal our desire to discourage second homes being maintained, and rather that they should be available for people use as their main homes.

In Brighton & Hove it currently costs the council £177,000 in lost revenue each year to provide the second home discount (see below for breakdown of this figure). We believe these funds should be used to protect existing services rather than subsidise reduced costs for second-home owners.

I know you passionately believe in localism so ask that you give local authorities the discretion on whether to offer a second home discount on council tax.

I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Cllr Jason Kitcat

Cabinet Member for Finance & Central Services

 

 

Breakdown of lost revenue from second home council tax discounts in Brighton & Hove (2011/12)

 

	Band A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	Total
number of discounts	191	228	269	213	198	68	49	7	1223
CT payable	£988	£1,153	£1,318	£1,482	£1,812	£2,141	£2,471	£2,965
10% x number of discounts	£18,877	£26,289	£35,448	£31,577	£35,876	£14,561	£12,107	£2,075	£176,810

 

Firstly the Conservatives have been denying they ever planned 2.5% increases in council tax. They’re now claiming they probably would have continued with a council tax freeze. This is not only financially improbable given the 33% cuts to Brighton & Hove City Council’s formula grant funding imposed by central government, but it isn’t true.

At a Cabinet Meeting on 17th February 2011 the Conservative administration approved a report which explicitly included plans for a 2.5% council tax increase from 2012/13 through to 2014/15. Noting this plan was part of recommendation 2 of the report they all voted for, details are online here. Will they retract their claims to the contrary?

Two other points the Conservatives are making also deserve clarification. They make much of the £2.5m underspend delivered in the year 2010/11. However this money isn’t just sitting in a slush fund waiting to be spent. Much of it was allocated by the Conservative administration in the 2011/12 budget before they lost power. What is left of it is there to deal with the risks involved in the huge changes and funding reductions we have to face in the current budget year. That historical, one-off, underspend has essentially no significant bearing on planning for next year’s budget to cover 2012/13.

Tories also are making noise about how much the council spends on funding Union representatives. Yet they were the ones who increased the funding (reasonably in my view) to support work on ‘Single Status’. This was a complex and fraught issue to resolve historical and current pay disparities between male and female employees doing similar roles. There are still a few matters to resolve in that area but any administration would need to have reviewed the union and HR provisions as this work wrapped up. What is notable is that the Green administration have chosen to be more open in spelling out those funding streams, whilst the Tories buried them in the whole HR budget pot.

Meanwhile Labour are banging a drum about how we have broken our supposed pledge to “resist all cuts” by even planning to deal with the imposed service reductions. We are strongly challenging government’s policies and we are the only party locally to be opposing the consensus that the cuts are necessary. However we recognise that central government can force certain things on us, so we did not pledge to “resist all cuts” – I’ve checked every Green leaflet I have a copy of, as well as our web site – as far as I can see we never said “resist all cuts”. Will Labour, specifically Cllr Gill Mitchell who keeps repeating the line “resist all cuts”, either show us the Green leaflet they are quoting or retract their statements?

What Greens did say was that we would “resist, to the greatest extent possible, the service cuts and privatisation imposed [on us]“. And we will…

UPDATE: Labour are also claiming we pledged to “stop the cuts” in a Huffington Post blog, again we never pledged that. I have checked all our publications and our website, the only time that term arises is in relation to the “Stop the Cuts coalition” who we worked with and our attending a “Stop the Cuts” march. Our manifesto is online Labour, so pick something that was actually in it to bash us with!

So at next week’s Cabinet meeting I’ll be presenting a report setting out our thinking on the budget process. In summary we’ll be seeking to invite cross-party involvement throughout the process, not just at the end; and we will be reaching out to citizens, unions and the third sector to feed into our thinking too.

We want to give council departments the space for longer term thinking and more sustainable changes than annual ‘salami slicing’ of budgets. So I’ve asked for them to present two year, rather than just annual, spending plans. I’d go for longer if I had greater certainty about what central government will do with our funding in future years.

The previous Conservative administration had budgeted on 2.5% annual council tax increases for the coming years. The Green administration are seeking to move that to 3.5% per annum. This is equivalent to 85p more per week for a band D property. At 3.5% the rate is below all the measures of inflation recorded by the Office for National Statistics.

Greens believe council tax is an unfair tax, but Government does not allow us to use fairer alternatives, such as land value tax. We do not take decisions to raise the tax rate lightly, and we are committed to spending the money raised carefully. That extra 1% will help us to protect key services from the cuts.

Meanwhile the council will be seeking spending savings of up to 15% over the coming two years, while also dealing with significant pressures from increased costs in a number of key services. Our principles in judging how to meet these challenges will be:

• To prioritise services for the young, elderly and vulnerable
• To promote efficient use of public money
• To support partnership working with public, private and third sector organisations

I want to emphasise the importance of the public engaging in this process, as a first step to greater community involvement in budget setting as we begin to pilot more neighbourhood decision-making. I know it’s going to be hard, but I passionately want to see more citizens discussing and understanding the council’s budget.

We also will be seeking to publish carbon budgets of some form. It is early days but, as with our program of public involvement in budget-setting, we hope the carbon budgeting will improve significantly each year.

While we will inevitably disagree on some proposals, I hope all parties will work with us constructively to face the challenge ahead of us. The Coalition government have imposed on Brighton & Hove huge, unnecessary cuts to our funding. All councillors are united in their passion for this city and I hope we can collectively move from tribalism to constructive working to come up with the best possible outcomes.

Last Thursday I met most of my heads of departments to introduce myself and set out my key priorities for the portfolio.

I have three top priorities for Finance & Central Services:

1. Openness & Participation
   I want to push the council to be as open as possible in everything it does, and significantly improve citizen participation in our decision-making.
2. Excellent Customer Service
   Expectations for customer service are, rightly, higher than ever. I believe the council can rise to the challenge and give our service users excellent customer service. In doing so we won’t just deliver great service, will improve people’s faith in the council.
3. The Budget
   We need to meet the challenge of the central government funding cuts being imposed on us, whilst staying true to the Green Party’s ambitions and principles. No easy task.

In terms of things I’ll be doing to deliver those principles, the local manifesto is my starting point. This actually surprises some people, but yes party members democratically approved the manifesto and we plan to work to it!

There are already loads of great ideas bouncing around the council offices, and I’ve got plenty of things I’d like to see put in place. We’re going to get stuck in, and I look forward to keeping you updated here on my blog.

It takes an awesome number of voluntary contributions for a small political party to achieve these kinds of results. It’s impossible to thank everyone who gives their time and skills to support a campaign they believe in. It’s an incredible thing to see and understand that wave of support we’ve had in the past few years. Thank you to each person who has helped us, no matter how big or small their contribution.

As someone who has been deeply involved in the party’s electoral strategy since about 2007 it is quite gobsmacking to see our ambition and our plans realised. Of course things were not straightforward, plans had to be adjusted and so on. Still, we have effected real change. A party with a very different culture and values to the others is for the first time in administration. Real change is possible. I’m involved in all this because I believe this is one of the best ways to change the world for the better.

Now we need to deliver for the people of this city. Thankfully, we have an excellent detailed manifesto to work from, and also the goodwill of many people and organisations around the city.

And no doubt we’ll need their support because we face many challenges: We’ll be a minority administration and our group has 14 new councillors out of 23 and we will have to deal with the cuts and changes the national Conservative-led government will impose on us.

Our group of councillors elected me to be the Cabinet Member for Finance & Central Services. I am humbled by the trust they have put in me to serve the city with this portfolio. Expect more blogging from me in the future on the areas covered by my portfolio.

A quick comment on the election campaign itself: It was disappointing how few hustings there were, it did feel that the local election didn’t really capture the public imagination. I think Labour made a real error, as they did last year over who could win in Pavilion, in claiming only they could form the next council administration. They have further tarnished their name by making claims which have been shown to be untrue. I hope they will reflect on that and hope we can work together constructively whenever we find common ground in the coming 4 years.

For now I’m catching up on sleep, spending time with my family and getting up to speed on all the departments I’ll be responsible for.

Tories keep saying Greens favour a congestion charge. We don’t, we have no policy for this and they’ll notice that our manifesto makes no mention of such a charge. Will that stop them suggesting it in their speeches and publications? Sadly, I doubt it.

I would say this, but the Green manifesto is full of clear, positive ideas for this city from more affordable housing, to 20mph limits for residential areas to a living wage for council staff. Lots of good stuff, but I want to highlight some particular areas of interest to me.

Democracy & Trust

We want to devolve power and introduce participative budgeting through neighbourhood councils or ward forums. We also want to return the council to the committee system which is more open and democratic than the current ‘strong leader and cabinet’ system imposed on us by the previous Labour government. We also would like to see a ‘one stop shop’ for people to be able to have their say on consultations, policies and services provided by the public sector.

We have a strong commitment to use open data formats and licenses for council information, reports, data and media. We also want to automatically publish Freedom of Information request responses (as long as privacy is not affected), remove restrictive terms on council web services and publish contracts the council signs up to.

Greens are committed to bringing services back in-house, reducing high offer pay and we oppose the move to abolish Sussex Police Authority with a single police commissioner for all of Sussex.

Waste & Recycling

We want to set our sights on becoming a ‘zero waste city’ which, until recently, was a status which brought councils extra funding. The new government’s waste plans are very much in limbo, but perhaps zero waste funding might return. Regardless we believe reducing waste and boosting recycling are the right things to do to save money and protect the environment.

We’re going to push for food waste collection, look to get the council collecting commercial waste and oppose any new landfill or landraise sites in Sussex.

Licensing

We are continuing to work with residents and businesses to find the balance between ‘peace and pleasure’. Being an old town with homes cheek by jowl with pubs and clubs, it’s always going to be difficult. However many businesses are responsive and understanding of the challenges. We want to support them with a responsible licensee scheme akin to the Scores on the Doors initiative for food standards in restaurants. We also want to improve the process for residents and businesses of nearby licensing applications. Where allowed by the law we’d also like to review the license fees charged by the council, as some seem too low and others too high.

Read about this and more in the full manifesto [PDF]

I won’t report the meeting blow by blow: You can watch it on the webcast, the extensive coverage on Brighton & Hove news (see related posts at the bottom of that link for more) and The Argus’ multimedia coverage.

In essence the Tories repeated the usual nonsense that the cuts were inevitable and they were all terribly responsible for implementing ‘savings’. They attacked Greens for being profligate and irresponsible with money. Yet it was the Green Alternative Budget which spent less money than the Tory budget, and put more aside into reserves, putting us in a better place for future years.

I tried to speak to our desire to reduce the number of high paid council officers in favour of protecting frontline services and increasing wages for the lowest paid workers. Our amendment to this affect had already been blocked from getting onto the agenda, but the mayor then tried to stop me even talking about the idea saying I couldn’t talk about job losses. Rather bizarre given the Tory budget was proposing to remove 250 jobs from the city!

It was excellent news that the joint Green and Labour amendments were passed through, saving some important services and eliminating the worst of the Tories budget gimmicks. These joint amendments (which I’m disappointed to see Labour claiming as ‘the Labour alternative budget‘) changed about £2.7m in the overall budget. Which, compared to the only £20,000 or so we changed last year through a last-minute Tory concession, is a big achievement. But in the context of the overall budget there were still about £23m of service reductions included.

This was a secretive budget process: papers presented late, officers restricted from talking to us about the detail we desperately needed and cabinet members not even attending some scrutiny meetings. Other councils take a much more open and cross-party approach to their budget setting.

Greens chose to vote down this Tory-cuts budget, and we had thought Labour would do so too — but they blinked at the last moment and abstained, letting the Tories push their budget through. Which is a terrible shame. We wanted to call another budget council in a week. We would spend the intervening time finding much more detail on what the proposals before us entailed. We would involved the unions, voluntary organisations and public in examining the books which we would have thrown open. Then we could have set a better, fairer budget.

Yes, it’s a better budget thanks to the joint Green & Labour amendments. It was appalling that Tories wanted to hand out a 1% tax cut (worth only 20p a week to the average tax payer – and nothing to those on benefits who don’t pay council tax) plus a 5% reduction in parking permits whilst slashing services for the young, elderly and vulnerable. How can they morally justify cutting provision for orphans (for example) whilst spending over £1 million on removing a cycle lane?

So some of that madness was averted. But with details on posts previously claimed as ‘vacant’ so deleted being revised to not vacant but still deleted, there was clearly much more we could work through if we had the time and information.

Labour’s last minute change of heart on this was bitterly disappointing, and it was plain on the face of many Labour councillors that this was not how they thought they would be voting. Tories jeered as their budget passed. They had repeatedly accused opposition parties of not understanding ‘value for money’, otherwise we wouldn’t be putting money back into services with our amendments. Putting money into a service doesn’t mean it has to spend every last penny – quite regularly departments underspend as demand fluctuates or they find more efficient ways of doing things. That is quite separate from just lopping great chunks off budgets to the detriment of services and their users.

The Tory cuts budget passed as Labour blinked, but the blows have been softened by the joint Green/Labour amendments passing. Greens stood firm in our opposition.