Heated debate as councillors vote to cut services and increase taxes in £32m savings plan

Cuts of £16 million to social care were among the controversial moves agreed last night as part of a two-year, £32 million savings plan.

Anti-cuts protestors waved banners in City Park as all councillors met for the annual budget meeting.

In the meeting, both Labour and the Conservatives agreed that council tax bills had to rise by an inflation-busting 4.99 per cent to bring in more cash.

But councillors were deeply divided over who was to blame for the loss of much-valued services, such as public toilets, community halls and tourist offices.

Labour’s council leader, Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe, opened the meeting by saying her group had undertaken “long and hard” deliberations through evenings and weekends to save as many services as possible in the budget, and dismissed the opposition Conservatives’ alternative budget amendments as “populist headlines”.

She called out to voluntary groups and businesses to help keep under-threat services going.

She said: “Our budget sets out the direction for the next four years.

“It’s not going to be easy. There is a huge amount of change to steer through in all services over a very short period of time.

“We cannot do all this on our own.”

The leader of the opposition Conservatives, Cllr Simon Cooke, began by criticising his own Government, saying he hoped they listened to “voices in local government” about the inadequate funding of social care.

He said his group recognised the need for a three per cent levy on council tax to help fund social care, but that this wasn’t a “sustainable system of support for the elderly and vulnerable”.

But Cllr Cooke also slammed some of the “spiteful” cuts Labour was making and had made in the recent past to visible services in local communities.

Labour councillor Taj Salam (Little Horton) responded to Cllr Cooke, saying: “It’s your Government that has shafted the whole country, and carry on doing it.”

In a speech that drew cheers from colleagues, he accused the Tories of “shafting adult social care, shafting housing and, most of all, shafting the poor and needy of our society”.

The Conservatives’ Glen Miller (Worth Valley) dealt a counter-accusation, that the Labour group on Bradford Council was unfairly targeting cuts on more rural areas.

He said: “That group over there are shafting the outer areas.”

Liberal Democrat leader, Cllr Jeanette Sunderland, said that at a time when the Labour leadership were decrying the cuts they were having to make, “some of the things you did spend money on are astonishing”.

She said this included £10,000 on maintaining City Park’s lasers, £50,000 on paving stones for outside the authority’s Margaret Macmillan Tower and £220,000 on travel and hotel accommodation.

She said: “There is no necessity for solar-powered dustbins, bespoke paving stones, refurbishing offices, millions of pounds of project management costs for swimming pools or £13 million for a heating system.

“These are your choices.”

Cllr Kevin Warnes (Green, Shipley) said his party could not support Labour’s budget, claiming it was in effect being dictated by central Government.

The Conservatives’ budget amendments were the first to be put to the vote.

These included the saving of pools in Bingley and Queensbury, community halls and public toilets, as well as the reversal of cuts to foster carers’ allowances – a hugely controversial decision made by the executive just two days before.

The Tories’ amendments were defeated and the Labour budget was passed, with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats voting against it and the Greens abstaining.

The vote sealed the fate of a number of council services.

One of the most prominent is a cut of £16 million over two years to adult social care, amid an attempt to boost independence and reduce the number or people coming into care.

The budget also included the closure of all-but-one of the district’s public toilets and between two and four of the district’s tourist centres.

Council support will be removed from seven community halls, more of the district’s public libraries and the maintenance of sports pitches and bowling greens.

The role of the Deputy Lord Mayor will be removed and the Bradford Ministry of Food – set up to boost cooking at home in the wake of the Jamie Oliver television show – will close.

The decision also means council tax will go up by 4.99 per cent this year, with an average Band D property paying £1,257.86 per year.

The increase includes a three per cent levy ring-fenced for social care.

Police and fire authorities have already set their council tax precepts for the year, which will be added to the bills.

The fire precept is going up by 1.99 per cent this year, to £60.90 a year for a Band D home.

The police precept is going up by 3.43 per cent, to £150.95 a year for a Band D property.

Anyone who lives in an area with a parish or town council will pay one further precept, which goes to the parish council.

All the district’s 18 parish councils have already set how much their precepts will be going up by this year, but Keighley Town Council is freezing its precept.

This year’s budget meeting was the first in Bradford Council’s history to be streamed live on the internet.

The meeting also paid tribute to Sir Ken Morrison, who died earlier this month.

Cllr Hinchcliffe called him “an all-time Bradford great”.

Outside the meeting, anti-cuts protestors were also in disagreement about who was to blame for the loss of services.

Peter Robson, secretary of the Socialist Party in Bradford, said Labour should be making more use of council reserves to protect services.

He added: “We think it’s disgraceful a Labour council is saying there’s nothing it can do when it brings in these cuts, when there’s a lot it can do.”

But Neal Heard, of the Bradford People’s Assembly, which was also holding a protest, blamed the Government.

He said: “We are in the farcical situation where we are saying the sixth richest country in the world can’t afford public toilets or libraries. It’s a farce.”