Brighton and Hove City Council faces a “dark chapter”, according to its political leader, as there are limited funds and “few options left”.
This was the bleak prediction by the Green leader of the council Phélim Mac Cafferty as he addressed senior councillors this afternoon (Thursday 19 October).
His comments came at the start of a meeting of the council’s Policy and Resources Committee, before discussions about this year’s over-spending and next year’s budget-setting process.
Councillor Mac Cafferty said: “The options left locally are dire and, to balance the books, we are facing heart-breakingly difficult decisions.
“I am clear this administration will protect council services where we can but vicious Tory cuts to Brighton and Hove mean there are limited funds and limited options left.
“This is another very dark chapter for our city and the council is likely to look and feel different by the end of the process.
“An example of that is that, to date, we’ve proudly been a high-spending council for things like children’s services. That era looks like it may be over.”
The council’s external auditor’s annual report to the Audit and Standards Committee next Tuesday (24 January) said that the council needed to put an “urgent” focus on its finances.
Councillor Mac Cafferty said: “The reality is that local government funding is broken and even the government knows it.
“As funding has been cut by over a third in real terms over the last decade, local councils across the country and political spectrum are in desperate financial positions with over 250 opting to increase council tax to its highest rate.
“The government tells us to either fund the gaps through council tax or close down council services.
“Given that council tax funds only 19 per cent of the council’s budget, you can see this isn’t the whole solution to the problem.
“Even the government is starting to acknowledge that more councils will face a ‘section 114’ bankruptcy notice as a result of their funding.
“In a cynical new low, the week the government should have been providing adequate funding for councils in their budget, they advertised for future commissioners who will be sent into councils to run them when they declare bankruptcy.
“Meanwhile, the government lauds its grant funding financing model which today saw Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s leafy rural constituency receive £19 million taxpayers’ cash to ‘level up’.
“These pots are not only undemocratic, they actively contribute to the difficulty all councils are having setting sustainable longer-term financing strategies as they pit local councils against each other.”
The Green administration is putting together its 2023-24 budget and needs to find £22 million in savings because of inflation, pay rises and an increasing demand for services.
When the draft budget went before councillors last month, proposed cuts and savings covered £12.6 million of the shortfall, with a further £8.3 million to be found.
The council is expected to put up council tax by 2.99 per cent and the adult social care precept by 2 per cent when councillors debate the budget on Thursday 23 February.
Residents have been campaigning against cuts. Parents, staff and supporters at Bright Start Nursery, which is earmarked for closure to save £104,000 a year, plan a protest starting from St Peter’s Church at 2pm on Saturday 4 February.
Supporters of the Early Years Project toy library are protesting outside Hove Town Hall before the full council meeting on Thursday 2 February over a plan to save £9,000 of its £22,000 grant funding.
There are two separate petitions against closing 18 public toilets – one on the council website with more than 4,000 signatures and another on the Change.org website with more than 5,000 signatures.
And this week, on Tuesday (17 January), opposition councillors voted against charging people to use public toilets and slammed proposals to close 18 toilets in parks and along the seafront.
Conservative and Labour members of the council’s Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee also voted down increases in parking charges and resident permits and the introduction of parking charges in parks.
The council’s Policy and Resources Committee is due to meet to discuss the budget on Thursday 8 February. The meeting is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.
‘heartbreakingly difficult decisions’ .. like getting rid of the Greens!
And Phelim is still trotting out the ‘our city’ trope – wonderful!
Let’s Rock!
Let residents have a say in where any dept budgets any cuts should fall
Odd that there’s plent of money for cycle lanes that cut the car parking spaces !
Different funding stream, Peter.
Benjamin
How many times do you need to be told, council tax money is used to top up those vanity projects.
Yes indeed if you look at VG3 which basically now a glorified cycle lane £6 million in grants, the council are borrowing £5 million and then spending a further £1 million . Near on 12 million to redirect a road put in a cycle lane and remove a roundabout. A cost to Brighton tax payers of at least £6 million. Common sense says it times are hard a rethink is required.
Brighton has one of the highest council taxes in the UK with lots of London money coming into Brighton an Hove. Phelim and his bunch of hippies have squanded so much money away on stuipd projects, reduced parking with those hdeous bike hangers, cycle lanes and new road layouts. His stupid council can’t even deliver the basics like emptying the bins, weeding and cleaning the streets. This is the worst coincil that Brighton and Hove have ever had.
The “heart brsakingly difficult decisions” don’t affect the Green vanity projects eg cycle hangars, cycle lianes, £25,000 art installation on Madeira Drive, unwanted LTNs, millions borrowed for VG£, £10m in a climate change fund etc
Yeah what is that crap all about under the decaying arches all about!
And no doubt Cllr Mac Cafferty will put the blame on the government for alll that nonsense.
The Labour installed Green Council have lost £1.7 million by removing parking spaces and installing a cycle lane next to an existing cycle lane and bike hangars. Who knows what knock on impact that has also had to shops and restuarants in Brighton. How on earth can they justify having squandered such eye watering sums of parking revenue money away.
Someone should remind this guy that we have been in a “dark chapter” ever since the Greens took over the destruction of Brighton & Hove. Hopefully we shall see the start of the end of it once the Greens are kicked out for good.
The Greens are destroying our once lively City
Wrong bit of verb, Martyn. They have destroyed it.
Brighton and Hove City Council faces a “dark chapter”, according to its political leader, as there are limited funds and “few options left”.
Councillor Mac Cafferty tells us the council needed to put an “urgent” focus on its finances.
Yes 10/10 for recognising what most of us have been saying for a long while.
He then tells us “I am clear this administration will protect council services where we can but vicious Tory cuts to Brighton and Hove mean there are limited funds and limited options left.
Yes tory cuts have put pressure on councils all over the country, so we need to think about the budgets we have at our disposal.
Vanity projects, VG3, LTN and Hove have all had money taken out the pot to top them up, think about that before spouting pure rubbish, £13million into Nuclear and Environmental projects, seriously ?
In no way to contradict the valid criticisms made above but since the merger in 1997 of Brighton with Hove & Portslade to create our present Unitary Authority, the reality is that it’s mainly the evil Machiavellianism of (New) Labour which has corrupted our Council (resulting in dozens of excellent Town Hall officers seeking better employment elsewhere – competence apparently NOT being wanted by the remaining senior officers?), and has brought our City to its scruffy knees!
And the T-719Greens, then? In their irrational foolishness, currently and in 2011-15, they seem to have concluded, erroneously, that ‘Labour’s way’ was best!
So yes, the Greens have done far too much bad, but what they’ve done is as nothing compared to the mountain of mis-management perpetrated/tolerated by the even more dictatorial Labour group since 1997?
However, during the 3 years or so, from 2008-2011, of the Conservative minority administration (led by Councillor Mary ) those Tories worked hard to end Spanish Practices across our City council! So hard that the-then Chief Executive, one Alan McCarthy (regarded as a Labour acolyte), decided to clear his desk to become a senior NHS
bureaucrat instead!
But with some 12 years of mis-rule in Parliament the chance of a Tory council emerging from the May council elections seems doubtful?
And thus? Quite simply in May for City electors to follow the example of many other communities in voting for ‘INDEPENDENT’ councillors, able to hold a decisive Balance of Power over the mainstream Parties, and to bring some common-sense into our City council, surely?
EDIT
In the previous Comment the full name of the hard-working Conservative City council Leader during 2008-11 is Councillor Mary Mears.
Apologies for the omission!