What the Conservatives said in the council’s budget debate today

The Conservatives have responded to the Greens’ £1.1 billion budget for Brighton and Hove City Council for the coming financial year.

They are due to vote on a proposal to put up the council tax by 4.99 per cent for the 2023-24 financial year which starts in April.

Here is what Tory councillor Alistair McNair said as he responded to Green proposals at Hove Town Hall this afternoon (Thursday 23 February) …

This time last year, at “budget council”, I reflected briefly on the Russian invasion of Ukraine which had literally just begun a few hours before.

A year has passed. Five hundred Ukrainians have been welcomed by our city. Many thanks to residents, the council and council staff who have worked so hard to help.

The Ukrainian community in this city is vibrant and close-knit. They have raised thousands of pounds of aid, including generators, held a film festival, concerts and weekly meetings. They have found jobs, learnt English and have even given birth.

For Ukrainians in this city, life is a daily struggle, with many of their family members fighting on the front line as I speak.

On Saturday 25 February from 2pm at All Saints Church, Hove, there will be a service to remember the start of the Russian invasion.

The Ukrainian community has organised speeches, a living library and performances – so do come and support them if you can. The support of Brighton and Hove has been immense, is still needed and will never be forgotten.

The overall picture is of a city council providing terrible value for money for its residents.

Brighton and Hove City Council is, according to the administration, one of the highest-spending unitary authorities in the country. The administration says that this is something they are proud of.

It is also, according to statistics, designated a “high-taxing council” – and on the cusp of becoming a “very high-taxing” council.

Over the past 10 financial years from 2012-13 to 2022-23, Brighton and Hove City Council has increased its band D council tax rate levied by 42.8 per cent. This is the 12th highest increase of any local authority in the UK over this period.

These 10 years of higher-than-average council tax rises under Green and Labour administrations have left Brighton and Hove on the verge of being designated a “very high-taxing council” by the UK Council Tax Index.

According to the index, Brighton and Hove City Council comes in at 303rd out of 362 UK local authorities in a ranking of lowest to highest-taxing councils in 2022-23.

If the budget goes through tonight, with its maximum 5 per cent council increase, I have no doubt that Brighton and Hove will move into the “very high-taxing” category.

Whatever way you look at it, Brighton and Hove City Council is not performing well on keeping council tax manageable compared to almost every other council across the UK.

Here are some examples of the high charges that Brighton and Hove residents are paying compared to others include

• The fifth-highest parking charges in the UK, according to the data. And about to get higher if Labour and the Greens get their way.
• Extraordinarily high traders’ permits. A traders permit now cost approximately £800 per year for a standard permit, compared with under £400 before the Green-Labour councils started 11 years ago. The Council is now targeting traders with older vehicles and charging them up to £1,400. This compares unfavourably to other local authorities. In Bristol, for example, a traders’ permit costs £224 per year and there is no targeting of older vehicles. It is also noted that the Labour and the Greens are targeting scaffolders with higher fees tonight.
• Sky-high residential parking permits – put up by Labour and Greens year after year, beyond that recommended by officers, to the point where demand is starting to collapse.
• Punitive fines – The council fines its residents with sneaky bus gate fines, with disguised cameras raising £2.2 million in their first year.

…

With all these high charges, what about the services residents are receiving? These services are among the worst ranked in the country. Let me list them for you.

• Rubbish: This is the only council in the region without a reliable rubbish collection service. Some streets in Hangleton had three months of missed rubbish collections in the last 12 months.
• Recycling: The city’s recycling service is among the worst in the country. Only 29.4 per cent is recycled compared to the national average of 45 per cent. This is the worst rate in Sussex.
• Verge cuttings: Brighton and Hove no longer cut residents’ verges. The Greens and Labour voted to halve verge cuttings a year. This has caused fires due to long grass in hot summers.
• Customer service: Residents find it almost impossible to access face to face services as the town halls have been reluctant to open to the public.
• Public toilets: Almost half the city’s public toilets are closed – 17 of the city’s 36 public toilet blocks closed during the winter.
• Housing tepairs: Council tenants can’t get their housing repairs done. There is a backlog of over 11,000 repairs as the council service collapsed.
• Anti-social behaviour in the civic realm: Central Brighton is ranked 8th worst of 33,000 areas in England and Wales for anti-social behaviour.
• Weeds on the pavement: Labour banned weedkiller in 2019 but failed to put any proper alternative in place.
• Tents in public parks: Brighton and Hove became the only council to allow tents in public parks which upsets many residents.
• Leisure centres: Brighton and Hove’s Leisure centres are either closed or operating on reduced hours.
• Parks and gardens: Parks and gardens are not maintained. For example, the Patcham roundabout flowerbed.
• Litter: The A27 is strewn with litter – only the Brighton and Hove section of the road it seems.
• Libraries: The council is closing libraries and reducing hours.
• Climate Change: The Friends of the Earth ranked Brighton and Hove’s performance on climate change in the bottom quarter of councils in England and Wales.
• Civic events: The council provides no civic events programme. The Queen’s Jubilee was barely recognised and nothing is planned for the coronation. The council banned City in Bloom because it didn’t think it was sustainable.

…

These are not problems that have come about through austerity; they are problems that have been building for the last 12 years.

These are all only problems you find in Brighton and Hove City Council. Compare Brighton to neighbouring authorities. They have none of these issues.

• Their toilets are open and clean
• Their libraries are open
• Their rubbish and recycling is collected without fail and they don’t have rolling bin strikes
• Their gardens are maintained – and award-winning in some cases

…

The evidence all points to the same conclusion – this council provides the worst value for money of almost any council in the country.

So what has been going wrong? Why is Brighton and Hove City Council so poor state compared to almost any other council.

It is clear and obvious why things are going so wrong at Brighton and Hove compared to other councils: It is the continued bad policy decisions of the Greens and Labour, in coalition or otherwise over the past 12 years.

Let me take you through some examples over the last few years. In housing, Labour and Greens’ coalition in-sourced the housing repairs service – a disastrous policy which has backfired. Since the decision

• There has been industrial action costing £2.287 million to resolve.
• The process of insourcing was £1.3 million over budget estimate of £7.8 million.
• The in-sourcing process cost over £10 million, has completely failed and has created a backlog of 11,000 repairs.
• There have been further costs of £1 million a year in lost rent as the council has been unable to repair empty council houses.
• It is now costing millions more to employ 13 separate contractors to try to catch up.

…

The total bill for this Labour/Green housing coalition policy mistake = £15.5 million and counting.

In public toilets, the Greens needlessly cancelled a contract for cleaning the city’s public toilets, which had five years to run and under which all public toilets in the city were open.

This immediately caused a threat of strike action and blew the budget. The Greens closed 17 of the City’s public toilet over winter.

The total bill for this Green policy mistake = £400,000 and counting.

Labour banned the use of weedkiller in 2019. It must be remembered that the council has a statutory duty to clear pavements, so this must be done one way or the other.

Labour said they want hot foam treatments instead. However, a trial in East Sussex found that such foam treatment requires three separate applications, costing 16 times more than using weedkiller.

For East Sussex, using foam treatment would cost the council £919,000 per year, compared to the current cost for traditional weed spraying of £55,000 per year.

The trial therefore concluded that this foam alternative was a complete non-starter given these prohibitive costs.

Then there is the long-term cost to the pavements which are cracked and have to be replaced.

In one fell swoop, Labour has therefore increased the cost to the city of weeding pavements by millions.

The total bill for this Labour/Green policy mistake = over £1 million and counting.

The council has put up parking charges and reduced parking spaces so much, including through cycle hangars, that it has reduced demand.

All this has impacted the council’s own financial position, creating a £1.477 million shortfall in expected parking revenue this year.

Labour voted to increase the price of residential parking permits by up to 90 per cent in a stealth tax that cost residents £200,000 at last year’s budget. It looks like they are planning more parking increases again tonight.

Closing Madeira Drive cost £800,000 in lost parking revenues and £447,853 for repurposing.

The Council has also not reclaimed £3.3 million owed by a coin collection company for parking.

The total bill for Labour/Green policy mistakes: £5.577 million.

On rubbish, Labour and Greens had a chance to reform the system when the bin strikes occurred.  However, they agreed to almost £859,000 per annum in higher fees for residents with no improvement in services. A terrible result for residents.

There was also £3 million overspend at Cityclean after their scheduling mistake over Christmas and the new year.

The total bill for this policy mistake so far: £4.718 million.

Then we have the price of policy mistakes. Labour’s errors running the council led to a collapse of the home to school transport service, putting children with a disability at risk, causing a £1 million overspend and culminating in the council facing an independent investigation from the Local Government Association.

In schools, there has been a £3.3 million cost to council from mistakes Labour made underpaying staff.

Labour’s mistake installing the Old Shoreham Road temporary cycle lanes wasted £127,670. Similarly installing and removing the A259 cycle lane wasted £186,491.

The total bill for Labour/Green policy mistake: £4.928 million.

Missed opportunities – the council is missing out on many grant opportunities. The former Labour administration declined an invitation to apply for CCTV from the police and crime commissioner.

As Brighton and Hove had the highest crime rates, our city would have been successful. However, after Labour declined to apply, Hastings and Eastbourne got the money instead. A grant worth £892,000.

The leader of the council said recently that more grants were potentially being missed.

The total bill for Labour/Green missed grants: £892,000.

The total money wasted: over £33 million.

Consider this: all we need is £400,000 to keep public toilets open.

Consider this: all we need is £35,000 to conduct one thorough litter pick of the A27.

I think it is worthwhile making a few observations on the budget process.

We do not have any faith in the current financial management of the city by this administration. The council continues to employ more and more staff, creating new sub departments and advertising for new office roles each year, but with no improvement in services to residents.

Residents frequently complain they cannot get in touch with council staff, many of whom work from home and are not able to meet with residents, affecting vulnerable residents most.

The council employs more and more officer staff since 2019. It employs 4,443 organisation staff, excluding the schools.

The council funds nine union staff positions, including two from some unions. Does this benefit residents at all? It doesn’t seem to stop the strikes!

The council will not consider a hiring freeze at all. Only in the last month, it is advertising for new communications-based positions. How we can we afford this?

Residents should also remember that the council has implemented new rates of pay. The budget report states that local changes to the council’s pay scales has resulted in increases in the rate of pay of between 10.5 per cent and 19.3 per cent for approximately 3,800 staff.

This may well be deserved – council officers do work hard of course – but it is a much higher pay award than many of this city’s residents have had.

The Greens and Labour have not kept a tight rein on the city’s finances or staff and have shown over the past four to 12 years that they cannot run the city effectively.

Targeting youth services is just one of the results of this mismanagement.

I turn now to the amendments.

Public toilets is the issue of the moment – 13,000 people have signed petitions across the city. We first raised the issue last summer, when the council was not maintaining Hove seafront toilets in the tourist season.

Even tonight, we remain unsure whether Greens and Labour are guaranteeing all toilets will be open next year.

The Greens only say they will save “as many toilets as possible” but will not publish a list. This has not reassured residents.

Labour wants to cancel the Hanover Low Traffic Neighbourhood and refurbish some toilets but won’t commit to reopening all the city’s toilets.

This does not reassure the members of the public at all who want an answer.

Why, after many months of budget meetings, can’t Greens and Labour tell residents of this city whether their local toilets will reopen? It is time to come clean.

Labour feathers its own nest rather than look after the people. The amendments show that Labour is putting feathering its own nest ahead of local people with its budget amendments.

Labour councillors have published amendments to the budget that seek to reduce parking fees at the councillors’ car park at Hove Town Hall, in Norton Road (and) running a mayoral chauffeur service for a year.

After Labour voted to increase car parking charges for every car park in the city, they want to reduce the charges at their own?

The Conservatives were deliberate in our strategy for amendments. Given the cost of living pressures on residents, we have deliberately chosen amendments which will not add any more costs to residents by the way of fees and charges.

By doing this we can save libraries and youth grants, which are important to residents. We are constantly being told that it in this current climate we need to provide warm, safe spaces. Libraries should be protected. They are important to many residents.

This is not the case with other groups who want take with one hand and give with the other. Labour want to increase residential parking permits – again! They want to target scaffolders with higher scaffolding licence fees.

They haven’t learnt their lessons from last year, that if you keep pushing parking charges up and up, this will collapse demand and create further damage to the budget.

The administration always tries to blame the government but is this true? The government is certainly not responsible for the policy mistakes of the council.

And the council is currently administering some £300 million of grants from the government – right at this moment. I could read them all out but the list would go to 70 separate items – and that is just this year.

We know that the council has received well over £22 million in homeless grants since the pandemic, for example.

It has received £9.5 million for “Kingsway to the Sea”, £12 million for Black Rock.

Lots of the money the city runs on is Conservative money and yet this is never acknowledged by the council. It’s stating the obvious but this is never been acknowledged by the Greens.

A letter to the Argus said the following: “An 87-year-old cousin will be visiting in a few weeks. He moved away from Brighton with his parents as a boy and has visited infrequently over the years – the last time being in 2000.

“Every time I speak with him on the phone, he reminisces fondly of his time in Brighton and Hove.  Now, I am already formulating excuses in my mind as to why Brighton and Hove looks so rundown, in every single aspect imaginable.”

The more I look back at things, the more it becomes apparent that the “good times” were all under Tory administrations while the running down of the town has always taken place when there is a Labour and/or Green administration.

Here are 10 points for a better city – a manifesto from the Brighton and Hove Conservative group.

1. We will sort out rubbish and recycling collections – The Conservatives will, as our number one priority, fix rubbish and recycling issues that have blighted Brighton and Hove for 12 years under Labour/Green councils.
2. Get our weeds and verges cut – The Conservatives will cut the weeds, cut the verges and make the city tidy again. We are practical people driven by common-sense solutions
3. Stop the waste and end excessive charges – Labour and Green councillors have wasted tens of millions on disastrous council schemes that have backfired on city council finances and services. We will stop the waste and reduce the tax burden on hard-working residents.
4. Fix our council housing stock – The Conservatives will fix the enormous mess in the city’s housing department caused by Labour/Green housing coalition policies. We will put council tenants first by immediately authorising the full use of council powers to tackle drugs and anti-social behaviour and resuming estate visits.
5. Make our streets safe again – Conservatives will reinstate lapsed “public space protection orders”, apply for funding to install CCTV and lighting and properly enforce council by-laws to improve community safety.
6. Bring back pride in our city – Residents are embarrassed by the state of the city, which is terrible compared to neighbouring authorities. We will tackle the issues head on. We will remove graffiti, fix lights, increase litter collections, instal CCTV, reopen all public toilets and bring back civic events such as City in Bloom.
7. Save our environment and urban fringe – Only the Conservatives have voted to save our urban fringe from development. We will protect the urban fringe, utilise brownfield sites first and foremost and introduce a genuine biodiversity policy.
8. Restore our city’s heritage – The Conservatives will make restoring Brighton’s heritage a priority, starting with Madeira Terraces. We will put an end to the policy that allows tents to be set up in public parks and restore these historic gardens to a proper state.
9. Return residents’ access to services – The Conservatives will provide the leadership to get the council back to work in person and delivering its services to residents again. We will reopen face to face services and ensure council telephone lines are open and being answered. Residents’ services must come first.
10. Revive local democracy – The Conservatives are 100 per cent focused on the local issues the city council is responsible for. We will return decision-making to the public view, make sure residents’ petitions and questions are heard and will reduce out of control bureaucracy. Don’t risk another four years of Green-Labour coalition.