A caring budget for tough times

Our city faces nearly Â£26 million in cuts. About Â£18 million is due to cuts from central government under the coalition's austerity agenda - austerity that is wholly unnecessary and has completely failed.

In this city, thanks to this austerity, those in most need are suffering hardship, debt, hunger, ill-health and, in some cases, death, while the national debt continues to rise, big business escapes taxation and the gap between rich and poor is wider than ever.

To help reduce the devastating effects of such cuts, the Green administration is proposing a 5.9% council tax rise, to begin in April. For a typical Band C, property this works out at Â£1.32 a week - or Â£69 a year per household. For a single adult or single parent with children in a Band A property, it works out at Â£39 a year - or 74p a week.

Over the last four years, we have quietly transformed how the council works, reducing staff costs to the bone, particularly in higher-paid posts, and we've closed many buildings. The council is much more efficient than it was when the Greens came in, but it's not enough.

With the measly level of funding now coming from central government, it is impossible to create a budget that doesn't have painful, often intolerable cuts, causing redundancies and affecting people whose lives are already difficult.

And it will get worse in years to come: both the Conservative and Labour parties are committed to continuing the destruction of local government services.

But a council tax rise of 5.9% will save some services completely and give others a lifeline. It will also save more than 140 jobs from threatened redundancy.

The "fall-back" budgets, showing the likely effects of a 1.99% tax rise and a tax freeze, have been compiled by officers because it is possible for Labour and Conservatives to unite and vote our budget down. We need a fall-back as a starting point for Labour and the Conservatives to work out what they want, if they reject our proposals. They will then amend the budgets to their own requirements.

But let's be clear: the Greens do not recommend these fall-back budgets, nor do we like them. If the city finds itself with a 1.99% tax rise or a tax freeze, it will be because Labour and Tory councillors have chosen that route, and have chosen much deeper cuts as a result. We believe that the city will find that morally deplorable.

The cuts handed down by the coalition government are so huge, and care for adults is such a large part of the council's budget, that it's impossible to leave it untouched. But where government is imposing a huge 13% cut, we are passing on considerably less and in many areas, such as home care for the elderly, we are passing on nothing at all. But without a 5.9% tax rise, the council cannot be nearly so protective. A Â£2 million cut will have much further-reaching consequences for years to come.

The same is true with support for the homeless, which faces a cut of Â£1.3 million whatever happens to council tax but would face a cut of Â£2 million without our 5.9% tax rise.

No budget this year can be free of cuts. The coalition government has imposed that on our city. But a rise of 5.9% does offer significant protection of vital services for those in our society who need our services the very most.

This is a caring budget in very tough times.

Ollie Sykes, a councillor for Brunswick and Adelaide, is the Green lead member for finance on Brighton and Hove City Council