Green councillors have hit back at claims they should abandon plans for a council tax rise as their local authority is well funded.

Independent auditors have revealed that Brighton and Hove City Council is a “high spending council” compared to similar authorities, such as Southampton and Portsmouth.

The news led to Conservative councillors questioning why the local authority was rejecting a Government grant to freeze the rates and pushing ahead with a2% council rise for the 2014/15 budget.

But the minority Green administration has hit back, adding it is committed to its plans for a belowinflation increase, which will be finalised in a vote of all councillors in February.

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Green councillor Leo Littman said: “The Tories have made it absolutely clear that they’d love to strip the city of public services and turn them over to private companies, like they are doing to theNHS and other services.

“We’d rather spend money wisely on getting the best possible services – and satisfaction surveys show it's working.

“If local Tories really want to help the people of Brighton and Hove they should lobby their colleagues in Westminster to stop singling out our city’s residents for their harshest funding cuts.”

Coun Littman said the council had been making major savings through “common sense” measures, such as reducing energy bills, while protecting jobs and frontline services.

The annual governance report was presented to councillors at its audit committee on Tuesday.

It said that the local authority “remains high spending compared to its statistical nearest neighbours”.

Independent auditors admitted that spending was decreasing in a “majority” of areas but not at a faster rate than at similar councils.

Areas in which it said spending could be reduced were children’s services and housing, where it is in the top five per cent compared to other authorities.

Conservative group leader Geoffrey Theobald said: “Labour and the Greens like to blame any difficult decisions that have to be taken on Government policies but this just goes to show that there is still plenty of scope for savings to be made that don’t impact on frontline services.

“The Greens should certainly abandon their plans to raise council tax and Labour should come off the fence and instead look at how other councils manage to deliver services more cheaply.”

Labour has yet to announce if it will support the council tax rise.