Brighton and Hove leaders have backed out of plans to sign up for a charter requiring them to check whether staff are going to strip clubs on expenses.

The city’s cabinet has opted not to join the Fawcett Charter, set up to target the objectification of women in the workplace. They were criticised by other council members who had been part of a majority vote in favour of the plan at a full council meeting last month.

Council leader Mary Mears said the council did not need to sign up because it had recently scored highly in an equality assessment and was confident enough in its existing measures.

Her Conservative colleague Dee Simson said there was unease at the suggestion staff could be using expenses to visit strip clubs, which would be implied by a clause in the Fawcett Charter requiring audits to check on them.

Coun Simson said: “While it is a very important subject, I did feel it was more directed at private firms. We thought that was a slant on our employees. That’s why we were against it.”

Green councillor Amy Kennedy had originally called on the council to sign up to the charter, in part to pay respects to feminist Millicent Fawcett, who it was named after.

Dame Fawcett was the wife of Henry Fawcett who was Brighton MP from 1865 to 1874 and a leading women’s rights campaigner.

Coun Kennedy also called for a blue plaque to be installed in her memory at Brighton Town Hall. That proposal was backed by the cabinet last night and passed to the city’s plaques committee to consider.

Liberal Democrat councillor David Watkins criticised the decision not to sign up to the charter, which has already been backed by firms including BT and Barclays.

Councillor Juliet McCaffery, the Labour group’s equalities spokeswoman, said she too was deeply disappointed the Conservative cabinet had not signed up.

The cabinet also turned down a proposal passed by the full council to enter into joint working with the Albert Kennedy Trust, a specialist group dealing with homeless young lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.