Last month we found out the final figure for the Green council budget of 2022-23 – a £3 million overspend.
This placed the local authority in a very difficult position, as we try to pay it back over the next three years.
This month we’ve had our first chance to see how the council’s finances are tracking against the final budget set by the Green administration before they left office.
I’m afraid it’s not good news. Based on the first few months of activity in 2023-24, the council is forecast to overspend it’s budget by £11 million.
Since taking office, it’s become clear to me that the entire budget approach of the last Green council was flawed.
Budgets based on ever increasing parking fees and revenues, that made risky assumptions about whether demand would hold up, can only last so long.
This is demonstrated in the figures that have just been published – the revenues the Greens assumed on parking are falling short by £800,000 alone.
As we’ve found out, some of the parking measures in the budget would mean dramatic fee increases for residents already suffering in a cost-of-living crisis. That’s why we’ve paused those rises and are urgently reviewing them.
Personally, I don’t believe these rises would’ve delivered the revenues they promised, given how much demand for parking they would’ve reduced.
In short – this was a budget built on sand, from a party playing fast and loose in the run up to an election.
So it’s left to Labour to take responsibility – and to try to get the council’s finances back under control.
That’s why we’ve taken the difficult decision to impose emergency financial controls on the local authority.
This means a pause in all recruitment and enhanced approvals for any large payments. This is not something any council wants to do but taking early and decisive action is the best way to try to avert financial disaster.
However, even in our first two months in office, and with money tight, Labour has shown what we can achieve when we focus on the issues that matter to residents.
Lifeguards restored to service, so families can enjoy an affordable and safe summer on our beaches.
Public toilets rapidly re-opened across the city, so all residents can access public spaces.
And Labour councillors focused every day on getting the city cleaned-up and looking how it should – an effort that will accelerate over “The Big Clean Up Weekend” on Saturday 15 July and Sunday 16 July.
Our finances are in a tough spot and further difficult decisions lie ahead. But Labour is taking responsibility and cleaning up both the mess on the streets and in our council budget.
Ah trotting out more lies is not a good look for a new council administration. He seems to have forgotten labour councillors voted for the budget he now pretends is all someone elses fault while claiming credit for things that were part of that like public toilets. It’s all just dither and delay with labour it seems.
And to Victoria below. You need to consider that the Labour group on the last council was not at all the same Labour group that we have now. The past Labour group was riddled with Momentum-backed people (whether openly or not) and a fair number of their councillors decided not to run again, for what reasons I wonder – and I acknowledge that at least one of them had serious health issues that mitigated against running again. I am not a Labour supporter, never have been and never will be, but at least the current lot do seem to be ‘proper Labour’ rather than the dubious hotch-potch we had before.
In case this is not crystal clear, but it should be, the Labour lot that were in bed with the Greens until recently are not the same lot that we currently have. Fortunately, the current lot don’t need to get in bed with the Greens or anyone else and will be judged in due course on what they have or haven’t done for residents.
That will be the Labour group that signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Green Party in 2020 and kept them in control the council for 3 years and supported and voted for all their plans and budgets as part of the deal?
Word in the council offices is it’s more like £13 million overspend
That sounds like the amount Green cllr Davis spent on the (not so active and hilariously expensive) Beryl bikes!
Could the editorial team please allow a Green reply in this? Two sides to every story…
The greens side is they synicallie ripped businesses and residents off at every opportunity and blew the money on nonsense traffic schemes instead of doing a single thing the the local environment. Hence why we voted them out.
Just look after Steve Davis’ twitter account ! – oh, wait a minute….
Yes definitely need a green response. What happened to balanced journalism?
We’re going to take responsibility and blame The Greens for everything.
So are we supposed to believe that Labour didn’t have any representation on the last council? That the Greens somehow did everything on their own despite only having 20 out of 54 seats?
That Labour never attended any meetings, never reviewed any proposals, never saw any budgets whatsoever and never voted any anything at all?
Do you think we are genuinely this stupid?
This is article should never have been published, it’s complete nonsense.
Well done Labour taking understanding the issue is the first part in tackling it. The total irony that Green plans were based on increasing revenue was totally reliant on car ownership is beyond belief.
Unison have produced a figure of £3.2bn for council budget shortfalls nationally for 2023/24.
This not an issue specific to Brighton, it is a fault of national government. I have family that live in a Tory council and they’ve had plenty of issues with bin collections and other local essentials, too. I suspect many Labour councils nationally have racked up a substantial debt in the last year or more.
This piece reads a bit like George Osborne in 2010 blaming the global financial crash on Labour.