The row over rough sleeper numbers drew fire from Brighton and Hove council leader Daniel Yates at a meeting this afternoon (Tuesday 12 March).
The Labour leader criticised a Conservative opponent, Councillor Robert Nemeth, for wasting council officers’ time to try to make a political point.
Councillor Yates made his remarks after an audit found that the method used for counting rough sleepers was officially acceptable.
It was called into question after it indicated a drop in the number of rough sleepers in Brighton and Hove from 178 to 64 over 12 months.
Councillor Yates said: “It is a disgrace that officers professional business has been dragged through the mud on the whim of a councillor who chose not to understand how his own national government told us how to change the count.
“There is not the slightest question of veracity. All there is is a lack of understanding from a person who has not come along now and is still casting aspersions online on this report.”
Councillor Nemeth and fellow Conservatives Mary Mears and Nick Taylor asked for the audit, citing Sussex Homeless Support campaigner’s Jim Deans figure of 140 rough sleepers in the city at the moment.
In their letter to Brighton and Hove City Council’s Audit and Standards Committee, they asked for an investigation.
They said that the numbers were “clearly wrong” and that as a result the council risked falling “into disrepute”.
The findings, presented in a report to the committee, were that in 2017 the official figure of 178 people sleeping rough was derived from an estimate. The method took data from various organisations and aimed to eliminate any double counting.
The official 2018 rough sleeping figure for the council was 64 people. It was a physical count compiled by outreach workers and volunteers who recorded the number of people bedded down in the city after midnight on Wednesday 21 November.
The council still compiles estimates from various organisations working with rough sleepers and the homeless.
Councillor Yates told the Audit and Standards Committee that data from St Mungo’s and other organisations working with the council gave a monthly picture of the number of rough sleepers without relying on the annual snapshot.
The figure is believed to be far closer to the number counted last November than the previous year’s estimate.
Green councillor Ollie Sykes said: “At the same time, the administration was happy to use these figures for the same purpose.
“Talking about homelessness in the city, we have to be honest that there is a problem as serious this year as it was last year.”
Disingenuous all round! Why not use both methods for the change-over year from one method to the other? Then anyone and everyone could compare like with like. Instead it’s lies, damned lies and statistics.