What Labour said at the annual budget council meeting

Struggling families will be able to receive help from a £600,000 Brighton and Hove Fairness Fund, Labour councillor Jacob Taylor said today (Thursday 22 February).

He announced the measure at Labour-run Brighton and Hove City Council’s annual “budget council” meeting where the council is due to set a £1.1 billion budget for the coming financial year.

Councillor Taylor, the Labour finance lead, said: “We are going to create a new Brighton and Hove Fairness Fund of £614,000, to support people who are most struggling in this broken Tory economy.”

It would provide, he said, “food vouchers, discretionary payments, support for food banks and funds to communities groups that help those most in need”.

Here is an edited version of Councillor Taylor’s speech as councillors prepare to set the budget and the council tax for 2024-25 …

This evening we will consider and vote on the council’s budget for the forthcoming financial year – one of the most important responsibilities we have as councillors.

But before I get into the proposals, it’s worth stepping back and considering the broader picture of local government and indeed the state of the country more generally.

This year, Brighton and Hove City Council has faced a budget gap of over £30 million, the largest in the history of this local authority. But we’re not alone.

There is nothing short of national crisis in local government funding and therefore a crisis in local democracy in this country.

In December, the LGA published the shocking survey finding that 18 per cent of local authorities were likely to issue a “section 114 notice” in the following year, effectively declaring themselves insolvent.

Just think about that – nearly a fifth of local government units in our country are on the brink of collapse. What sort of country and what sort of government has allowed that to happen?

Under 13 years of a Labour government, two section 114 notices were issued. From 2018 onwards – just a five-year period – section 114 notices have been issued 12 times.

Lib Dem Woking, Tory Thurrock, Labour Slough, Tory Northumberland, Labour Nottingham – all forced to issue notices and have commissioners come in and make decisions on local services – not locally elected representatives.

But of course, a section 114 is just the tip of the iceberg – the culmination of a failed system and a failed government.

What’s just as significant is what’s happening everywhere else, the councils that are battling to avoid that fate.

Almost every day we see news of what council’s up and down the country are having to do. Suffolk County Council abolishing its entire arts and culture budget. Somerset council forced to cut libraries, toilets, recycling centres. Southampton City Council shutting care homes and increasing charges by 66 per cent.

The list goes on and on – we’d be here all night if I read them all. Local services, owned by the public, and run for the public, being decimated.

An attack on civic life in every corner of the country, on local services and institutions that make life better or just more bearable for some residents.

I asked earlier what kind of government would allow this to happen. But of course, this Tory government hasn’t “allowed” it to happen – this isn’t some quirk of history that they didn’t see coming – this is a deliberate choice to underfund and degrade local government.

And it’s not just lefty Labour councillors like me saying it. Let’s see what my Conservative counterpart in Kent had to say.

Deputy leader Peter Oakford said: “Local councils will be sent into a death spiral unless the government starts fully funding social care.”

And: “The current mix of funding is unsustainable to provide the levels of service to meet demand.”

The Conservative leader of Surrey County Council said: “We’re starting to see many of the local councils in Surrey cutting back to just delivering their statutory services.

“We deliver some of the most important services to local residents, the most vulnerable residents, so our plea to government is to recognise that”.

Indeed, it seems that almost every Conservative leader in the south east has spoken out against the impact of government underfunding – except it seems one.

I sometimes subject myself to reading Councillor McNair’s Argus columns and, while they are often bizarre and incomprehensible, when I do get through reading them, I have never once seen him utter a word of reflection on the funding of local government, and as far as I’m aware he has not once implored his own government to ease the strain on local authorities.

Conservative voters in Kent, Surrey and East Sussex seem to get Conservative councillors that at least stand up for them, at least try to influence government to protect services. In Brighton and Hove Conservative councillors don’t seem to be too bothered.

So, before we hear a single word this evening from Conservative councillors, before they utter a single opinion on the proposals in this budget, the first thing they owe is an apology.

An apology to their ward residents that their own government doesn’t care about their local services – and an apology to this city for the chronic underfunding that has happened under 14 years of their Tory government.

But it’s also worth considering the local context, and the position of this council. In the past financial year, the previous Green administration overspent their annual budget by £3.5 million – the first time in the entire history of the local authority that this had happened.

This meant that the Greens had to dip into our working balance, the cash we have for a rainy day, taking it from £9 million to below £6 million. This is the lowest amount of cash reserves in recent memory, and significantly below the minimum level recommended by the chief financial officer. In other words, we are in a precarious position.

This administration took office in May 2023 and inherited the budget for this financial year which I acknowledge that Labour voted for.

At one point, this council had a forecast overspend of £15 million on this year’s budget. We took early and decisive action – putting in place emergency spending controls, recruitment controls and putting a laser focus on bringing down agency spend.

And because of that, I’m pleased to say that the latest TBM (targeted budget management) report shows that we are on now on budget for this year and will now likely achieve an underspend.

I’ve heard members of the Green party make excuses on this – “we faced extraordinary pressures in that year and anyway we were only in a minority administration”.

Well let’s have a look at the figures. The TBM forecast trajectory shows that in 2022-23 the highest forecast overspend was around £13 million.

For the year we’ve managed the budget – the forecast overspend was £15 million at one point. And yet they achieved a £3.5 million overspend and we’re now on track to deliver an underspend.

As I’ve said before, this city has faced a double-whammy in recent years – cruel Tory Austerity that’s decimated local government funding and Green party financial incompetence locally.

And so that’s the context for setting the budget this year. A £30 million budget gap because government funding hasn’t kept up with service costs and demands – and with the working balance at dangerously low levels.

But this Labour administration takes responsibility and that’s why we’ve proposed a balanced budget for next year. A budget that avoids bankruptcy but that also reflects the priorities of residents.

This is the hardest budget that this local authority has ever had to face – and I’ll be honest with members, the hardest thing I’ve ever had to undertake professionally in my life.

We take zero pleasure in this Labour administration having to find savings – quite the opposite. We obviously want to be expanding and developing local government in this city.

And I want to directly address our brilliant staff at the council. I am sorry we are in this position. I am sorry that some staff members are facing uncertainty about their jobs. None of this is your fault. None of this is a reflection on the job that you do, on the service that you provide to residents.

This is only happening because the Conservative Party doesn’t value local government. Well, we do and we’re hoping to get a Labour government very soon that can provide sustainable financing to local authorities.

Our starting point was, of course, to try to protect as many frontline services as possible. And we have done everything humanly possible to explore creative alternatives, to find efficiencies and deliver differently as a council.

We have proposed a re-organisation of the council structure, to try to remove silos, but also achieve savings of £2.5 million.

We have made changes to the capital programme to achieve savings of £2.5 million in financing costs.

And we have released some reserves for projects that won’t be happening in this immediate financial year. All of these actions have meant we have significantly minimised the need to cut frontline services.

We have spent months and months developing and refining these proposals, to try to protect what matters to residents. And to a large extent we have done that.

Unlike the last administration, not a single public toilet is being proposed for closure. Indeed we are investing money to reopen the toilets in Pavilion Gardens.

All of our council-run nurseries are being kept – a key investment in early years – within a context where most local authorities had to stop providing these years ago.

All of our remaining libraries, including Hove Library, have been protected. We are maintaining all of our street cleaning team because residents want this city looking it’s best again and we have a plan to start tackling the weeds.

We’ve made provision to protect lifeguard support in the city – so vital in a seaside town so that local families can enjoy a day at the beach.

And we investing £200,000 for a groundbreaking pilot of mental health counselling in schools, something I note the Tories are trying to rip out of this budget.

Now, I think Councillor Davis said in a press release that Labour was trying to hide the difficult bits in this budget. Not so – we take responsibility for what we do on this council: the good bits and the difficult bits.

We are having to raise council tax. We’d prefer not to do that because it’s a regressive tax and we know many in this city are still struggling with the cost of living. But we have no choice – and most other councils in the country are having to do the same thing.

I also want to acknowledge the concern expressed by RISE about budget proposals relating to the vital work that the council commissions to reduce violence against women and girls (VAWG) as well as refuge services offered to LGBT people.

We as an administration are completely committed to this work and will be maintaining a gross budget of over £1 million to support VAWG reduction in 2024-25.

As part of our proposals to close an unprecedented budget gap of over £30 million for next year, we have had to consider all areas of the council’s budget. I want to be clear about the proposed savings of £120,000 in this area.

Half of this saving (£60,000) relates to an underspend on the budget last year. And so this element of the saving reflects a reduction in the planned budget, to reflect the reality of an underspend. A further £12,000 is a saving from a general uplift in funding – not a cut.

Lastly, there is a £10k saving proposed on “sanctuary hardware” which is also currently underspending. This fund is currently administered directly to clients by RISE.

This leaves the remaining £38,000 of savings which represent less than 4 per cent of the gross VAWG budget.

These relate to elements of services that are currently commissioned from RISE. £29,000 relates to the LGBTQ dispersed accommodation contract which runs until the end of September.

To be clear, this contract will be recommissioned in September but for a reduced amount. We are not removing the LGBTQ refuge service. It will be commissioned and RISE will of course be welcome to bid for this.

The remaining £9,000 relates to funding for a multiple compound needs worker – a contract that runs until November. We believe that appropriate referrals into the MARAC will provide support for this cohort of people.

I also want to address the figure presented by RISE, just to try to ensure members understand the full picture. RISE have stated that they could lose funding of £129,000.

• £5,000 Third sector: Support for mothers, babies and young children
• £99,962 New burdens: LGBT dispersed refuge and therapeutic wellbeing support for women and children
• £24,719 New burdens: Changing futures (casework navigator for women with multiple complex needs)

We also want to be absolutely clear that government “new burdens” funding under the Domestic Abuse Act will not be cut and, indeed, the council has responded to a government consultation requesting that this budget continues to be ring-fenced going forward.

We received over £600,000 of new burdens funding for 2024-25 which will continue to be ring-fenced for VAWG work.

I also wanted to acknowledge the position statement published by PaCC – our brilliant Parent Carers’ Council in the city, who are a vitally important partner.

I will be writing formally to PaCC to address all of the points they raise. But I did want touch upon the proposal to create a new residential home at Tudor House, enabling us to rehome children with complex disabilities back in Brighton and Hove.

We’re proud of this proposal and we’re glad that PaCC have welcomed the concept in principle. But we also acknowledge their concerns, and the concerns of individual parents, about the provision of respite care at Drove Road.

This will be a key focus for the council in coming months and we recommit to continue working closely with PaCC and Amaze on this important proposal.

We have a number of opposition amendments which will discussed throughout the rest of the debate.

But there was one I wanted to briefly touch upon. We have a Tory amendment that attempts a very cheap bit of politics.

They have sought to maintain the political assistants, I understand, by proposing to cut the special responsibility allowance for being chairs and deputy chairs.

They might think this is clever and that it forces us into an embarrassing corner. But it simply degrades local government spreads cynicism about elected representatives.

Well, we’re not embarrassed about it and we don’t hide the fact that chairs get paid a special responsibilities allowance. They get just under £9,000 on top of a basic allowance of just over £13,000. So a total salary of about £23,000.

Whatever you think of the policies being produced by this administration, I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that chairs don’t work hard.

Many of our chairs are essentially doing this full time and have given up their other paid work and I think they should be paid for that.

Now, we know that Councillor (Anne) Meadows proposed this idea at the last full council and is keen on it. Fair enough, but I’m honestly surprised that Councillor McNair has supported this.

I think he knows how hard chairs work and I think he probably knows deep down that this is pretty cheap.

Now, of course, Councillor Meadows herself received a special responsibility allowance for four years from 2015, as a chair of a committee. It was roughly £10,000 a year, so just of £41,000 over a four-year period.

I think it’s entirely reasonable that she got that and I assume she worked hard. I’m sorry to say that we won’t be accepting the amendment for the reasons I’ve described and I’m sorry that Councillor Meadows now feels that she didn’t deserve those payments.

But I have some good news for Councillor Meadows. I have made special inquiries for her with colleagues and can confirm that she is welcome to pay back the money if she no longer thinks it was warranted.

And here’s a promise – if Councillor Meadows wishes to pay back this money, we’ll commit to adding it to the pot for the Youth Led Grants programme that we’ve reinstated. The exact amount they were asking for.

Capital investments: Housing. Madeira Terraces. Withdean swimming pool. Pushing ahead with Kingsway to the sea.

I talked at the beginning about the catastrophic underfunding of local government by the Tories. But it’s also worth mentioning the Household Support Fund. This was provided last year and used by local authorities, including us, to mitigate the harshest effects of the “cost of living crisis” and the fall-out of the Liz Truss disaster-budget.

We are coming towards the end of February and we still have no confirmation whether any Household Support Funding whatsoever will be provided by government.

This is of massive concern to us in the Labour group, and to many of the voluntary groups in the city that support those struggling to pay for the basics – those struggling to survive in Tory Britain.

That’s why I have one further announcement to make this evening. Something that’s not in the budget papers.

As I mentioned earlier, we’ve allocated additional funds, following the initial draft budget, which included a contingency of £307,000.

This is being held as fund to mitigate the continuing effects of the cost of living crisis and will be focused on providing direct financial support to residents who most need it.

We also intend to use this fund support some of the groups that would previously have bid for the communities fund.

I also noted in the beginning of my speech that we’ve managed the budget so tightly this year, bringing down a forecast £15 million overspend to come in on budget.

Well, in fact, we are now on course to do better than come in on budget for 2023-24 – we are now likely to achieve an underspend.

That’s why tonight I’m announcing that, subject to the final underspend position at outturn, we won’t just be allocating £307,000 that I mentioned. In fact – we’re going to double it.

We are going to create a new Brighton and Hove Fairness Fund of £614,000 to support people who are most struggling in this broken Tory Economy.

Food vouchers, discretionary payments, support for food banks and funds to communities groups that help those most in need.

So to conclude, I say to Labour members in this chamber, to anyone who put their trust in us last May, and to all residents of this city.

I understand why it’s sometimes easy to become despondent, given the shocking state of the national economy and the difficulty of the decisions we’ve faced as a council.

But this budget, and the actions of this administration, have shown the importance of what a Labour Council can do.

We have a Tory Party that has decimated local government with underfunding – a party that quite frankly don’t give a damn about local services.

And we have a Green Party that often means well but who were unable to manage the finances of this council. A catastrophic decision on financing the i360 and an overspend last year of £3.5 million – both of which will need to be paid back for years to come.

But we’ve offered the city something else. We believe in local services. And we also believe in good local government.

Make no mistake – the management of this council’s finances and the setting of a balanced budget was not in vain.

It had a purpose – and what we have achieved as Labour group of councillors has meant that we can provide an additional £600,000 of funding to support our residents that are most in need.

That’s what a Labour council can achieve in the face of a brutal Tory government and I ask members to vote for this budget this evening.