Bradford councillors have voted to raise Council Tax by 1.99 per cent from April after a third successive year of multi-million pound cuts across all departments was agreed.

The ruling Labour group's budget plans were passed with the support of the Green party at the end of a two hour special meeting at City Hall tonight.

The agreed budget will leave the Council with cuts to services for 2013/14 of £27m and more jobs losses at the authority, which are expected to total about 86.

Labour came under fire from the Conservatives for pushing through a rise in Council Tax just below the Government-set threshold that would have triggered a referendum.

However Council leader, Labour’s Councillor David Green said the offer of a grant worth one per cent to freeze the tax was not a “helping hand” amid “dramatic attacks on services” from the Government, but merely “at best a finger to the people of the district”.