THE GUARDIAN reports live from the crunch budget meeting at Ilford Town Hall.

The chamber is abuzz with expectation before the debate begins over the council's proposed jobs and services cuts.

Latest: Meeting closed at 9.21pm

9.20pm

Councillors agree zero per cent rise in council tax for 2010/11.

9.15pm

Councillors prepare to debate setting of council tax.

9.14pm

Councillors agree to housing revenue budget.

9.02pm

Cllr Prince asked who is responsible for denying the council £7.8 million for housing this year (implying that it is the Government's fault).

9.00pm

Cllr Saund criticises the council's failure to build more homes and Redbridge Homes' failure to get the two stars rating it needed to win Decent Homes funding from the Government.

She said housing waiting times are unacceptable.

8.59pm

Cllr Cleaver said it is a concern that tenants face rent increases this year.

8.55pm

Councillors agree to capital programme for 2010/11.

8.53pm

Cllr Littlewood calls on the council to safeguard the future of the plan for a new swimming pool in Ilford.

8.50pm

Cllr Staight calls on the council to focus on protecting the highways capital programme to try to address the borough's pothole problem.

20.45pm

Councillors begin to consider the capital programme for 2010/11.

8.42pm

Councillors agree the council's revenue budget for 2010/11.

8.38pm

Cllr Bond said Cllr Prince is wrong to blame Gordon Brown alone for the council's financial woes.

He described the Labour Government's mistakes as 'Conservative mistakes.'

8.22pm

Councillors vote to support the Lib Dem amendments.

8.21pm

Cllr Prince accepts the Lib Dem amendments and thanks the them for working with h.

8.19pm

Cllr Staight said the amendment to the Highways and Engineering cuts plan was vital to protect 'safety critical' services such as cleaning road signs and repainting road markings.

20.15pm

Lib Dems introduce two further amendments - one to defer implementation of £9,000 worth of the £56,000 cuts planned by the council to the Highways and Engineering budget, and another to defer plans to cut one planning officer post until April 1 2010.

Cllr Cleaver said cutting the planning officer post would be a 'false economy.'

20.07pm

Councillors vote to support all five Labour amendments - meaning the council will now defer its plans to reduce the library archive service, to cut three street cleaner jobs, £70,000 from the adult social services budget, reduce highways officer support to area committees, and scrap concessionary rates for over-60s allotment holders to April 1, 2010.

20.05pm

Cllr Barden lends his backing to the Labour party's amendments.

7.56pm Cllr Cleaver praises the decision to keep council tax at zero, an idea that was first put forward by his party a year ago.

Cllr Cleaver also lends his backing to the Labour group's amendments - including one calling on the council to defer its plan to reduce highways officer support for area committees until April 1, 2011.

7.52pmCllr Weinberg agrees to accept the Labour group's proposed amendment to defer its plan to cut library archive services and its plan to scrap concessionary rates for over-60s allotment holders until April 1, 2011.

The decision was met with calls of approval from the public.

7.44pm Cllr Prince says the budget cuts have been forced on the council by poor financial management by central Government. He said the authority has been up in expected funding from the Government, such as the £900,000 needed to pay for the Freedom Pass.

He said the council had tried to reach agreement with the other parties to try and create a budget that will be acceptable to the public, but that it had to make savings to protect frontline services.

7.22pm Alan Cornish leads a deputation calling on councillors to reject plans for cuts to the borough's library archive service.

He said: "Erosion of this service looks like the precursor of a total loss of the entire archive – an irretrievable loss to researchers, to this community, and to future communities.

"Such loss of material will steadily escalate, in the absence of clear and unambiguous confirmation that the full archive service will remain.

"In conclusion, recently announced minor adjustments appear more a joke than reality.

"For example, the amended proposal for 50 hours of library services open to the public is a CUT from the current 59 hours: not a concession!

"Times are hard – economies must be made. But it is 1984-style double-talk to call the slashing of our Local Studies and Archive Department “A New Improvement Plan."

"We therefore ask that you now cut this proposal from the overall budget, to allow for further consideration and to meet these criticisms."