The council is looking at what to do with a £500,000 windfall after the government allocated more social care funding than expected to Brighton and Hove City Council.
Labour leader Bella Sankey said that the council had budgeted for £2.25 million and had set aside £200,000 in case it received less.
But with almost £2.6 million awarded by the government, Councillor Sankey said that there was a total of £500,000 “unallocated”.
She said that details of how this would be allocated would be contained in a report due to be published next week as members prepared for the annual budget council meeting later this month.
Since the council published its draft budget proposals last week, Councillor Sankey said that residents, businesses and the community and the voluntary sector had been in touch to share concerns.
Councillor Sankey spoke about some of those concerns when the council’s Strategy, Finance and City Regeneration Committee met at Hove Town Hall this afternoon (Thursday 8 February).
She said: “We have heard feedback on the impact of reducing the funding to Brighton Unemployed Families project and Brighton Oasis for childcare provision. We are exploring ways to protect that funding.
“We’re also concerned about whether changes to homeless advice commissioning might threaten the future of the Youth Advice Centre. We don’t want that to happen, and are discussing this with YMCA Downslink as a priority.
“The overall budget position has been extremely severe but we’re exploring whether some additional funding might be available to help support this hugely valued service.
“The council is proposing to make a saving of £58,000 on the commissioning of the ‘Reconnections’ service at First Base.
“First Base is an absolutely vital day centre in the city for homeless people and we are exploring how we might be able to unlock Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities monies to maintain that funding.
“I have asked officers to actively engage with First Base to ensure this facility can be maintained.
“It is also with great sadness that the ‘communities fund’ has for now been discontinued, other than the BME fund.
“We completely recognise the importance of the work done by smaller voluntary and charity organisations in the city.
“There has been a small uplift in our overall position, following the final local government settlement this week, and we are minded to try to recreate a new version of the communities fund with this money.
“On a related note, the future of the government’s ‘household support fund’ still hangs in the balance.
“This is the £4 million that allows us to provide free school meals vouchers in the school holiday, emergency fuel and food vouchers and much of the direct support to food banks and other services keeping food in people’s bellies in Tory Britain.
“We still have no clarity as to whether this fund will continue past (Sunday) 31 March and so this additional financial breathing space confirmed last Monday will be held in contingency as we consider how best it can be used to impact the ongoing ‘cost of living crisis’.”
I’ve got a food idea. What about reducing council tax or repairing the seafront railings or Madeira terrace. The council should fulfill its statutory obligations first before spending money anywhere else however good the cause. At the moment we are paying more council tax than almost anywhere else in the country and its just too expensive voting Labour.
Serious question for you.
How much do you think council tax would reduce by if this £500k was used for reducing bills rather than for this proposal?
Simple maths would answer that. A couple of quid for every person in the city. Or just under a fiver off a council tax bill. So, with an above inflation rise planned why not take less from each of us? Couldn’t we spend it more efficiently on what we need than the council?
Do you understand what “Statutory obligations” means? The seafront railings of Madeira Terrace do not fall into statutory obligations.
Statutory obligations include schools, Adult and children social care. How does lowering council tax help that?
You’d rather reduce council tax (which will disproportionately benefit the well off) rather than support food banks for people living in poverty?
The council hasn’t talked about giving to food banks. It does read that key services are already provided for, there was even a 200k buffer for that. Looking like they are finding ways to spend the money rather than need driving this.
Another twist from our twisty council
Since taking over they have been festooning us with wildly exaggerated and diverse financial predictions – was the deficit 4 million, 13 million, 35 million? Who knows? Disasters which *only they* can save us from…
Constant doom predictions and threats which – surprise surprise – they manage to fix right at the last minute. Claims to have saved the city from bankruptcy when – this year at least – that was never on the cards. They cut our city and expect us to thank them for the band aid.
Ever had the feeling you’re being played?
For once we are in agreement. It’s called gaslighting. Problem, reaction, solution.
Pot hole repair please
protecting childcare for early years at both Brighton unemployed centre and Oasis can only be a good thing as these areas are always under attack.
YMCA Downlink and BHT Sussex GET A LOT already. Why bring back a service a lot of young people tell me is not fit for purpose. Too much power for organisations staff slag of as shit!! Check procurement contracts for em they’re raking it in. Unemployment centre is a vital service and they are not a super charity like them two, lets see them get a large award. There will be a by-election soon and I will personally campaign if this is not done right.
As always the super charity lobby wins over the smaller more impactful services, they are far too often left behind.
I don’t know why they give such massive contracts to the likes of St Mungos, much of which goes to support their head office work in London anyway. When did anyone last see an outreach worker from St Mungo’s in the brighton streets?
Well given that Mungo’s don’t have the outreach contract now you’d be pretty unlikely to see them! CGL run Street Outreach now.
Re-open the Mile Oak Library. Or support the Older Peoples’ Council again having swiped their funding previously, yet you always have time and money for your Youth Council.
I’d adapt your idea about libraries into creating book exchange programmes throughout community centres. You get the benefit of libraries, access to literature, whilst avoiding the costs to maintain a library building.
You could also link the selections with each other and create a community library network within that to expand the selection for people even more.
Oh, I’m feeling inspired. Thanks Barry.
Regarding creating a new Older People Council would not be difficult to create and find with other grant funds outside of BHCC. National Lottery AFA would be well interested in that one I reckon.
I wonder if there is a good way of using that money to access match funding from the Community Ownership Fund? At 20%, £500,000 could be made into £25,000,000 worth of projects, or at least until the pot runs out from central government.
Sorry, £2,500,000. I should try to math at 11pm at night after an 18 hour shift…
How can they have a windfall when they have debts of over £300 million? Thats going to have to be paid !
Your numbers are a bit off, Del.
Yes its probably closer to £400 million..check it out…50 mill for i360 alone..
My mental health is affected by potholes and damaged pavements
Given that the recent financial projections have been so wild, going from massive deficit and near-bankruptcy to smaller deficit then breaking even or similar, why not just allocate this to an existing eligible project or whatever and save the equivalent from that project for the very torrential rainy day which will inevitably occur a bit further down the line with the usual overspends and cock-ups (like the appalling SEND fiasco, for example). And don’t, whatever you do, blue the lot on ‘consultants’, please.
Seems pretty sensible to me. Smaller projects generally don’t need the aforementioned consultants either, so that mitigates some of that concern.