Council tax is expected to rise by almost 5 per cent again next spring with Brighton and Hove City Council facing a forecast £105 million budget shortfall over the next four years.
The council’s deputy leader Jacob Taylor told fellow cabinet members that the council was trying to tackle a £37 million budget gap next year alone.
Councillor Taylor, the council cabinet member for finance, said that people were paying more but receiving fewer services because demand for social care had not kept pace with funding.
The Labour deputy leader said that the forecast increase in council tax would again consist of a 2.99 per cent general rise plus a dedicated 2 per cent for adult social care.
He told a cabinet meeting at Hove Town Hall on Thursday (26 September) about an analysis by the Local Government Association (LGA) which represents councils up and down the country.
The LGA analysis found that in 2010-11 councils spent an average of 41 per cent of their “general fund” on adult and children’s social care. Last year, 2023-24, it accounted for 61 per cent.
Councillor Taylor said: “In Brighton and Hove, the figures we’re going to publish are similar if not a little bit higher on those kinds of care budgets.
“To make clear, this statement is in absolutely no way to try to blame or put the fault of this budget increase on people using these services. Quite the opposite.
“To make it really clear, nationally there has been an observed problem where both the cost and demand of social care nationally has gone up.
“In that context, the overall settlements that local government have been getting have not been keeping up with those pressures.
“That means inevitably that other non-statutory things – things people associate with the look and feel of the city or leisure facilities or things they would like to see their local council providing – have struggled to be funded over that period.”
Councillor Taylor said that he wanted to get public engagement with the budget under way early so that people could understand how the budget would affect them.
Events are proposed at the Jubilee Library – as well as an online tool enabling people to allocate different amounts to different services to see the knock-on effects on other parts of the budget.
Green councillor Ollie Sykes asked when “star chamber” – or high-level – meetings would start and when the line-by-line draft budget proposals would be available.
He said: “Moving to the cabinet system, the administration wants to be more open and transparent so the general fund budget timeline allows for consultation.
“The promised star chamber process is not included in the budget timeline and it’s not clear when line-by-line draft budget proposals will be made available for public and member review.”
Councillor Taylor said that the “star chamber” was not defined in statute but senior councillors and officials would continuously review the process.
He said that he would like the line-by-line budget to come out as early as possible and earlier than the last budget when the government settlement was not published until the end of November last year.
In Brighton and Hove the annual budget for 2024-25 – the current financial year – was £924 million, with most going on education, adult social care, housing benefits and housing.
A further £211 million for the capital programme took the total budget to £1.1 billion.
Talk of council tax hikes by Labour, but ZERO talk of them challenging their pals in Westminster to simply fund local councils properly.
It was only seven months ago when Labour councillors in Brighton made 100% clear that the hardship councils face is a direct result of Tory austerity and that it is political choice why services are being cut. Now they in power both locally and in government, they are not ending this austerity and playing smoke and mirrors and trying to deflect it’s now their political choices causing, or threatening to cause, so much hardship. If Councillor Taylor does value local Government he should insist that Keir and co fund councils properly and that they make noise publicly condeming them if they don’t.
As a reminder, copied below are Councillor Jacob Taylor’s comments from late Feb THIS YEAR where he said:
“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.
“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.”
Nothing’s “changed” except massive backtracking on Labour’s part, with their councillors in Brighton and Hove now seemingly prepared to accept local government funding is still going to be screwed by their own Labour Government. Shameful.
Surprise surprise, there should also be a refund for various services never delivered, like Politicians not/never performing or attending,
The issue with the absentee ward councillors, and the inability to remove them, highlighted a gap in local legislation, for me.
Having saddled the city with the redundant white elephant called the i360, we really should be going after the originator, a certain Jason Kitcat.
Send him the bill.
Could say the same about those behind the (not) “value for money” £124 million contract with Veolia that the council are still locked into, plus loads of PFI contracts taken out. A dreadful legacy of the last Labour government that pretty much farmed loads of our public services out to the private sector who have made money off the back of it all.
Wasn’t that contract actually signed up for by the first Green administration?
It was indeed.
New Labour = Old Tory.
Time to cut some services,council tax is becoming unaffordable
Most have been but many are legal obligations such as social care.
Although adult social care is one of the biggest expenses in that category. The emergency housing schemes are burning a pretty big hole in the council’s pocket.
I’d argue they aren’t providing a lot of value for money, so bringing them in house would make a lot of sense to me if you wanted to make an impactful streamlining of your bill on this front.
Housing all these homeless types in hostels most of whom have northern accents must be costing us brighton tax payers a mint not to mention their benefit payments send them all back whence they came so other councils can get lumbered most of them are young people who need to get off their arses and do a good day’s work to contribute to the system instead of take , take , take judging by the number of them begging
Couldn’t agree more.
The council also spend £1,250 per person per week on emergency accommodation, equivalent to almost £180 a day, putting people in many of the worst guest houses where winter room rates are closer to £20 a night! Why are they paying such inflated prices?
Racist undertones aside, I do agree that emergency and supported accomodation schemes cost a huge amount of money, Michael.
Tightening up on the contracts, or simply bringing it in-house, pardon the pun, could make a massive impact on improving the cost moving forward.
Most of the people I see housed in emergency accommodation in Brighton are home grown drug and drink addicts and those with mental health issues so no racist undertones from me.
Oh no, you’ve not said anything of the sort. It was Barry’s comment that had the undertone. Apologies for the confusion. I would agree with your assessment from a perspective point of view, some of the stories I’ve heard from residents who have lived next to some such high-risk accommodations perfectly align with the typical perspective.
Just dumping people into an accommodation with an inappropriate amount of support from other high-risk individuals is not helpful for the long-term well-being of that individual or their flatmates. As you can imagine, those kinds of behaviours encourage more high-risk behaviours.
For example, there’s a reason it is considered a bad idea for an alcoholic to work in an off-licence.
They are joking right, Labour are going to spend money making a “tool” to help residents understand the budget and the difficult “choices” and do some mock engagements in libraries.
Also love the fact that when Greens had a budget gap Labour were banging on about financial mismanagement. Now they have a budget gap 10 times the size of the one they were finger pointing about, they make out it’s to do with more demand on services.
They really do think residents in the city are stupid and have short memories – we don’t – we remember what they said and what they promised, and they are falling very far short!
It’s a well established, evidence-based, fact that local councils across the nation are having to do more with less finances, Cathy.
Perhaps the true cost of being the “city of sanctuary” ?
5% a year every year for 15 years is about double the council tax. Did they think us stupid enough not to notice! My income did not double in 15 years. The council has spent 15 years overspending and wasting money on too much flim-flam. Please can someone get a grip! Also students don’t pay council tax but use many of the services the council tax pays for. Seems like having two universities in Brighton contributes to the deficit.
Depends on the value of your money after inflation, Reece. Incomes remain an issue though.
Students pay into the economy in other ways, but I agree the balance is not always clear.
All councils are compensated by the Government for the loss of CT due to the Government ruling that student dont have to pay CT . Council only gets 3% the other 2% goes adult care
A tax that you have to pay and you literally get nothing in return.
You don’t literally get nothing. You can argue the value of the services you get are not equal or of good value, but not that you literally get nothing.
On a broader note, a tax is a redistribution of wealth. It’s meant for society holistically. Although, I suspect if sat down and worked out the numbers, you get far more than you put in for the majority of people.
Just wait for the budget on 30th.
I may start a people trafficking underworld business, buying up all the discarded inflatables from UK beaches and trafficking Brits to Europe to claim asylum.
Here’s an idea that maybe Councils could ponder over?
As most people on below £14 or (half that) are already struggling to survive, why not round up all these people and just push them off Beachy Head and be done with it for the poor once and for all?
Shame on you.
I have to say, I’m firstly disappointed with the Labour council, and similarly disappointed with our new government.
It does seem as if we are all being pushed off the cliff into destitution, and it appears that in order to survive we will need to resort to things that we wouldn’t normally do, like do the occasional job for cash, or whatever. Cheat a bit here and there, basically.
This country is finished. I think we need to just accept it.
This doesn’t come as any surprise it seems to be written in stone,as you cant do anything about it ,hog tied by pig farmers,