Conservative claims about wasted money don’t add up and here’s why …

The Conservatives proposed a motion on value for money savings at the meeting of the full council last week.

My Green colleagues and I are all in favour of value for money but this motion could not be taken seriously.

It only serves to show us, yet again, either that the Conservatives do not understand council finances or they are misleading the public for political purposes.

They made six allegations about taxpayers’ money being wasted and below I’ve set out the reality about each one of their claims.

The Conservatives said that £10 million had been wasted on the “ideological” decision to “insource” Brighton and Hove City Council’s housing repair service, currently subject to ongoing industrial action.

But the council has not spent £10 million on the insourcing. It’s spent £10 million on the whole service – very similar to the £10 million that the previous, outsourced, service cost.

In addition, comparing the cost of the current and previous service is difficult not only because of inflation but also because the new service contains additional elements. Comparing like for like requires more analysis.

The pandemic also makes comparison challenging and officers will attempt to do this work in due course but, adjusting for differences in service provision, the costs are expected to be broadly comparable.

The Conservatives said that there was a £3 million overspend at Cityclean in the two years to the end of March 2020. And they said that the auditors had said that they had not been able to count all the costs of the problems with the council service.

Again, the figures are simply wrong. In 2018-19 the overspend was £796,000 and in 2019-20 it was £1.1 million. That makes £1.9 million over two years to the end of March 2020, not £3 million.

The Conservatives cited a figure of £1 million for Labour’s meddling with the home to school transport service on similar ideological grounds, resulting in the collapse of a service for disabled children to get to school.

The Green administration picked up this matter and it is clear that there were lessons to be learned.

These have been taken on board and the involvement of the Parent Carers’ Council (PaCC) has been excellent and has really helped to make the service better than ever.

The cost has increased but we expect this to be managed down over time as the new service model beds in and we can ultimately reduce administrative costs.

However, even with the increased cost of £1 million, the service is still below the average for our comparator group of local authorities despite the extra investment.

The Conservatives said that £800,000 had been wasted over six months after Labour and the Greens’ controversial decision to close Madeira Drive and implement the A259 cycle lane.

And they said that this was money that would usually go towards concessionary bus passes for the disabled and over-65s as well as on subsidising bus routes.

The loss of parking revenues does have a financial implication but we have completely mitigated this in the current year in three ways.

We have reduced administrative costs where possible, overachieved on some permit income budgets and utilised the government’s 75 per cent compensation grant for loss of income from sales, fees and charges.

There has been no reduction in the budgets for concessionary bus passes for the disabled and over-65s or for the subsidised bus routes.

These services will continue to be protected in 2021-22 as the Conservatives will have seen from the draft budget papers.

The Conservatives mentioned a £3.3 million administrative error affecting local schools. The council said that it would pass on 43 per cent of the cost of this error to schools and local taxpayers would pick up the rest of the bill.

The issue – of “term-time only” pay – has affected many councils. So much so that in 2017, overwhelmed for advice, the Local Government Association set up a working group with Unison and the GMB to explore the matter. This resulted in case law that directed a change in the way that annual leave is calculated.

This calculation error – made in good faith by many local authorities – dates back to the formation of the council in Brighton and Hove in 1997 and possibly even earlier.

It remained uncorrected by successive administrations, including the Conservative administration of from 2007 to 2011.

And finally, the Conservatives cited the £1,200-a-day cost for six months of a temporary housing director employed by Labour.

As I wasn’t part of the Labour administration, I can’t comment on why this was done. But what I can say is that it wasn’t £1,200 day. It was £999 a day plus VAT.

Once again, the Conservatives are either trying to intentionally mislead everyone or they don’t realise that the council can claim back VAT and therefore VAT does not constitute a cost to the council.

Councillor Tom Druitt speaks on finance for the Greens on Brighton and Hove City Council.