HAMPSHIRE County Council leader Ken Thornber is furious over comments made by Local Government Minister John Healey in a national newspaper today (January 24).

Councillor Thornber said Mr Healey needed to look at the evidence more carefully after the Minister claimed Hampshire could cut £36 off council tax bills.

"Send your officials down to Hampshire and we will go through the books with them and they will see a first class county council with low cost, effective services.

"I challenge them to tell us where we could take £36 off, when we have already made £48 million efficiencies over the last three years and remain one of the highest performing councils with council tax in the lowest quartile."

Hampshire joins Kent and Essex, the other biggest county councils, in expressing their anger at what Councillor Thornber described as a 'kick in the teeth'.

"In my letter to John Healey a couple of weeks ago I told him that Hampshire council tax payers couldn't afford to pay more. I said I was concerned about the lack of transparency in the grant model and I resent the apparent arbitrary judgements made today.

"Government views council tax payers in Hampshire as more affluent and able to pay more in order for grant to be channelled away to other areas. Government works out that Hampshire needs just £111 per head in grant, compared to £326 in Durham - is the need and cost of a younger adult with disabilities so much smaller in Hampshire?"

"If we had the same level of grant per head as Durham, we'd be able to take £550 off the average council tax bill!

"Government expects Hampshire to do more for less, to make the money go further and that's what we have done. We've been at the forefront of service transformation.

"On adult social care we recovered £20m, while improving our care rating to 'excellent'. We pioneered nursing homes in a joint £60million scheme with health that has avoided costs of £12 million.

"In procurement, through the South East Centre of Excellence we are saving taxpayers' money by establishing framework contracts for building projects, approach which earned us a prestigious national award."

"We have achieved £15 million efficiency savings each year while having one of the lowest council tax rates.

"Government has given us a two per cent grant increase, well below inflation, at a time when we are having to increase spending on adult care by five per cent because of increased demographic pressures and our spending on waste disposal by four per cent, which means we have to find three per cent efficiencies just to keep within the Government's capping regime of five per cent."