Lewes council tax rise and new hardship fund both agreed

On Monday (February 21), Lewes District Council agreed its budget for the 2022/23 financial year, which included an increase the authority’s share of council tax by £5 a year and plans to find new savings of more than £1.18m.

It also included plans to set up a £500,000 hardship fund (to be drawn from reserves), which is expected to act as a support grant for residents hit by rising inflation and energy prices. 

Council leader Zoe Nicholson (Green) said the fund would form part of a ‘compassionate’ budget intended to address the rising cost of living in the coming years.

She said: “Over the last few weeks we have been warned by the people who know, the Bank of England, of the impact of that cost of living crisis. 

“They are describing it in terms I’ve never really heard before, terms where we are speaking of standards of living dropping to levels that records have never documented before.  

“We are talking about rises in inflation affecting our communities of really significant levels, the recent rise in the energy price cap of 54 per cent. We know that is going to impact on our residents, it is already impacting on our residents.”

She added: “I believe this is a compassionate budget. It is a budget that supports the most vulnerable in our community right now.

“It is a budget that focuses on community wellbeing, that seeks to improve our green spaces and our play spaces, improve biodiversity and it is a budget that also focuses on a green recovery and tries to put as much of our own resources as we can in supporting those people who are going to be be most affected, in terms of increasing local jobs and making those as green as we can.”

During the same meeting, the council also agreed to extend its Council Tax Reduction Scheme. As a result, the district’s lowest income households will no longer pay any council tax at all, rather than 20 per cent minimum charge under the current scheme.

The change to the scheme was proposed some time ago and has seen criticism from the Conservative group, who felt the same benefit could be found from putting extra money into the council’s exceptional hardship scheme.

Conservative group leader Isabelle Linington reiterated some of these concerns during the meeting, arguing that it would have been fairer to freeze council tax, as this would benefit all within the district.

Cllr Linington said: “Although [the council tax rise] is small for the district, we think it would have been better to support everybody by not increasing it at all. 

“It seems more logical to me that we could have not put up council tax and not altered the council tax reduction scheme, because they more or less cancel each other out.”

Conservatives also criticised the proposals for the new hardship fund due to concerns around drawing money from reserves and the level of detail about how the grants would operate.

Cllr Linington said: “I have to question, is it the role of a council to use council taxpayers’ money to pay other residents’ energy bills. You obviously think it is, I’m not so sure that is the right way to use our residents’ money.

“There is other support. The government is giving support for energy bills and you’ve  also had the county council scheme, which was originally government money and the county council diverted it down to boroughs and districts.

“Of course you want to target your support, but it is only going to benefit a few people. There is a lot of people who are struggling but they don’t quite qualify for any benefits. 

“It is those who worry me, because I think they are not really getting any support from this budget.”

A similar argument was made by Liz Boorman (Con) about the council’s plans to increase its social and affordable housing rents by 4.1 per cent. This increase was in line with government recommendations.

Cllr Boorman argued this meant the proposed hardship fund was ‘contradictory’, as it would be offering funding for people hit by higher costs created by the council.

In light of their concerns, Conservatives said they would not support the main budget, despite agreeing with some of its proposals. 

However, this position saw criticism from a number of Alliance councillors, including the council’s deputy leader James MacCleary. 

Cllr MacCleary (Lib Dem) said: “Obviously you all passionately believe that we should freeze council tax and not go ahead with this hardship grant.

“It is a bit odd therefore that you haven’t put it forward as an amendment to the budget, which does in fact just make it a lot of hot air and political posturing at that point.

“If you really believed in it, one wonders why you didn’t bother putting it as an amendment in the first place.”

This line of argument was disputed by Conservatives who said they had advocated for a council tax freeze at previous meetings but had not found support for it.

The Conservative group did put forward one amendment to the budget, however  — for the council to hire an additional planning enforcement officer, initially for a period of two years. 

This amendment was accepted by Cllr Nicholson, who said it would build on already undertaken to increase the size of the council’s planning enforcement team.  

This led to an unusual situation where Conservatives abstained from voting on their own amendment as a vote in favour would also approve the main budget proposals, which they maintained that they could not support.

Even so, the full budget proposals (including the amendment) were approved on a majority vote.

This included new savings totalling £1.183m, mostly (£500,000 of the total figure) as a result of changes to capital financing.

The other large part of the savings planned for 2022/23 is expected to come in the form of ‘re-shaping’ a number of council departments. This is expected to bring savings of around £447,000. 

Alongside this, the council expects to generate around £155,000 from its plans to lease Southover House to Charleston. These plans, which would involve the arts group using the building as a ‘creative centre’, were approved at a cabinet meeting earlier in the month.

Although not part of the main budget proposals, the same meeting also saw councillors discuss proposals to significantly increase their allowances. 

The proposals had been recommended by an independent panel and would have seen councillors’ basic allowances increase from £3,260 to £3,964 per annum. Other allowances would also have increased in a similar way.

However, councillors unanimously agreed not to take the increase in light of the financial pressures faced by residents and the council.

It was the second time the council had declined to take the recommended increase, having first turned it down in November 2020.

While none of the councillors present argued in favour of taking the increased allowances this year, several said it should be increased in future to ensure the role was open to as wide a range of people as possible.