TWO independent Fife councillors are calling for a bump in council tax to help reduce cuts to public services.

Education spokesperson Bryan Poole (pic) and Lochs councillor Willie Clarke want an end to the current freeze on council tax to help fund struggling services instead of forcing councils into measures which they compare to “robbing Peter to pay Paul”.

Fife Council has proposed a number of cost-cutting measures in order to try to plug some of the £77million funding gap over the next three years, including cutting the school week, introducing charges for blue badges and losing 2000 council jobs.

But the independent duo say they have had enough of the “pretence” of annual budget meetings and want to have a discussion with Fifers about the “elephant in the room” – avoiding planned cuts by introducing a small increase in council tax – a move that Fife Council argues would result in a “severe” financial penalty from the Scottish Government because of the freeze.

A meeting was held at Dalgety Bay last Thursday to give members of the public a chance to discuss the idea and Cllr Poole said Fife Council’s budget meeting was “a bit of a farce”.

“What we see at councils throughout Scotland, including Fife, at budget day meetings are councillors of all persuasions effectively arguing, ‘My cuts proposals are better or less damaging than yours’,” he said.

“Even the language used is misleading. Instead of ‘cuts to services’ councillors prefer to talk about making savings. The reality and honest position is that for several years councils have had the finance available to them reduced in real terms and at the same time, the demand and need for services has increased year on year.

“The result of this charade is that a significant chunk of the council’s energy goes in to managing crises – a bit like the Dutch boy trying to stem the breach in the dyke by sticking his finger in the hole.

"What’s actually happening is that councillors just move resources from one underfunded service to another underfunded service. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is another way of putting it.

“One example of this is that the transportation budget over the years has been cut by around 35 per cent to offset the need to prop up the budget available to support care in the community but what we are now left with is a huge backlog of road maintenance issues and older people’s services creaking – in short, neither service is meeting local needs.

“It’s time we had an honest and open discussion with local communities about resolving this year-on-year farce.” Cllr Clarke added, “Many people who I speak to about this are saying, ‘I’d be prepared to pay a little bit extra each week to protect services – particularly services to the elderly and the education of our young people’.

“I was also active in the recent referendum campaign and I picked up a very strong view – from both sides of the argument – of the need to protect the public services in Scotland and again there was a real commitment to protecting services for older people and the education of our young people.

“I think its time we tested this out and with that in mind Bryan and I arranged a number of public meetings in the lead-up to the Fife Council budget where we will be laying out the budget challenge; the likely impact on services if the various cuts proceed and we want to explore the appetite from local people for the choice of further service cuts against a relatively small rise in the council tax.” Cllr Poole added that senior Fife Council officials had denied them the support and resources to undertake the exercise in the scope they wanted but the independent duo still arranged public meetings in Dalgety Bay, Ballingry, Levenmouth and Cupar recently.