CUTS of £29.4m, at least 153 job losses and the biggest council tax rise in at least a decade have been decided at a heated meeting.

Bradford Council’s latest two-year savings package, including swingeing cuts to both children’s services and adult social care, was agreed at City Hall yesterday.

Leader Susan Hinchcliffe said she and many other councillors who had joined the authority since 2010 “had never known a time when there was money to spare”.

She expressed regret at raising council tax by the maximum of 5.99 per cent, noting that no opposition party had objected to this proposal.

And with some Labour councillors wearing black in protest at the Government’s austerity programme, deputy leader Imran Khan accused the Tories of an ideologically-driven mission “to hollow out the state”.

Conservative group leader Councillor Simon Cooke said he had “no hesitation whatsoever” in supporting calls for better funding for local councils, but said they should be setting a budget which focused on developing the city and protecting essential services.

He said: “What we have instead, in this Labour budget, is a sort of combination of hope, misplaced priority and wishful thinking, tied up in a little ribbon saying, ‘It’s not our fault’.”

Cllr Cooke criticised the ruling Labour group’s spending on capital projects, such as the plan to move a market into Darley Street, prompting Labour’s Councillor Alex Ross-Shaw to say deputy Tory leader Cllr John Pennington had liked the plan so much he had “said it was his idea all along”.

Leader of the Liberal Democrat and Independent group, Councillor Jeanette Sunderland, was scathing about plans to cut back on council tax discounts for poorer families, disabled people and carers. She said: “This means hundreds and hundreds of pounds of extra costs for families with the biggest burdens.”

Councillor David Ward hit out at plans to halve the number of staff in a team which helps families deal with young people’s issues such as health, youth offending and school attendance. The plan, which is due to be decided at another meeting, would “come back to haunt the council”, he warned.

The Conservatives’ budget tweaks were defeated at the vote and the Labour budget was passed by 47 to 31, with Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors voting against and four abstentions.

* Where the cuts will be made –

In 2018/19:

£224,800 is to be cut from road maintenance

£200,000 is to be saved from school catering budgets and £80,000 from residential catering budgets

The Register Office will save £15,000 through increased fees

In 2019/20:

£260,000 is to be saved through a review of the Museums and Galleries service

£311,000 is to be cut from the Youth Service, with grants reviewed during 2018 and grants to voluntary and community groups providing youth work ceasing from April 2019

£170,100 is to be cut from the funding of the Bradford Respite and Integrated Care and Support Service, which provides temporary accommodation to adults who are homeless on discharge from hospital

£75,000 will be saved through cutting the cost of top management and their personal assistants

£8m is to be saved from adult social care in 2019/20, by promoting “independence and resilience”

£310,000 is to be cut from Public Health budgets

£625,000 is to be saved from substance misuse services

£1.96m is to be cut from school nursing and health visiting, primarily through management and back-office savings as well as control of job vacancies

£950,000 to be saved by further reducing the number of libraries directly provided by Bradford Council

The levy paid to the West Yorkshire Combined Authority to be cut by £750,000

£150,000 saved from events and festivals

£1m saved from street cleaning

£300,000 cut from staff overtime budgets and car allowances.

A plan to cut £3m in 2019/20 and £2.6m in 2020/21 from the children’s Prevention and Early Help team, which oversees children’s centres, is being decided upon separately.