A petition has been started calling for a referendum on whether Brighton and Hove City Council should be run by a cabinet.
Chris Bratt started the petition – Give residents a vote on the future of Brighton and Hove City Council petition on the Change.org website – because he did not agree with scrapping decision-making by committee.
Tomorrow (Thursday 16 May), the council is due to scrap its seven policy-making committees. Instead, council leader Bella Sankey and nine colleagues will form a cabinet which plans to meet monthly.
Decisions will be subject to review by two overview and scrutiny committees – for “people” and “place” – made up mostly of councillors from the ruling Labour group.
The move has been criticised by opposition councillors who feel disenfranchised by the move.
But Councillor Sankey told the last meeting of the full council in March that the cabinet system was the most common system in the country for running councils.
Mr Bratt, 33, founder of People Make Games, started the petition because he said that the move was undemocratic and gave no voice to the 53 per cent of voters who did not back Labour.
He said: “I was very surprised to see the change come into place, knowing a little bit about Brighton and its history with the committee system. It’s something this area has pushed for throughout its history.
“It feels like it’s part of the city’s political DNA. For a change to happen, to switch again to a cabinet system, it felt like it should be a big moment for the city to debate and discuss.
“It seems like it happened quietly and quickly when the latest administration took over.
“It felt like a power grab by the council with less scrutiny and debate from other parties, and even other Labour councillors who may not be in favour with the current leadership.”
Mr Bratt said that he was a member of Labour in the past and knows the party can be “fractious”.
He said that in 2001 voters rejected proposals to have an elected mayor and cabinet in a referendum. At one point the council did have a cabinet because of government policy.
But when the Green Party – which he has since joined – pledged to resore committees in its 2011 election manifesto, they were elected and carried out their proise.
Mr Bratt said: “It wasn’t mentioned once in the Labour manifesto so we’ve never had that opportunity to debate the proposal because it was never proposed to us. It just happened.”
After setting up the petition yesterday (Tuesday 14 May), more than 100 people promptly signed it and Mr Bratt hopes to secure support for a debate and a referendum.
Should the council agree to put the case to the vote, he suggested waiting until a future election to minimise costs. A general election is due to take place within months.
The council’s new constitution is due to go before the “annual council meeting” tomorrow (Thursday 16 May) for approval.
All 54 councillors will be asked to vote for the cabinet as well as the two scrutiny committee and a number of regulatory committees.
The cabinet will be led by Councillor Sankey and includes
- Councillor Jacob Taylor – deputy leader and cabinet member for finance and city regeneration
- Councillor Gill Williams – deputy leader and cabinet member for housing and new homes
- Councillor Emma Daniel – cabinet member for children, families and youth services
- Councillor Tristram Burden – cabinet member for adult social care and service transformation
- Councillor Tim Rowkins – cabinet member for net zero and environmental services
- Councillor Trevor Muten – cabinet member for transport, parking and public realm
- Councillor Leslie Pumm – cabinet member for communities, equalities and human rights
- Councillor Birgit Miller – cabinet member for culture, heritage and tourism
- Councillor Alan Robins – cabinet member for sports and recreation
The council is expected to appoint four cabinet advisers
- Councillor Ty Goddard – cabinet adviser for regional partnerships and economic growth
- Councillor Mitchie Alexander – cabinet adviser for community engagement, food insecurity and allotments
- Councillor Paul Nann – cabinet adviser for a homeless hub
- Councillor Joy Robinson – cabinet adviser for contract management and procurement
The current mayor, Councillor Jackie O’Quinn, is expected to chair the People Overview and Scrutiny Committee while Councillor Amanda Evans has been nominated to chair the Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee.
The regulatory committees – Planning, Licensing, Audit and Standards and the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee – should continue to operate as they did before the proposed changes.
Will it get the potholes filled, bins emptied, gullies cleared and weeds removed and stop silly vanity projects? That’s what we really want. Or is that too much to ask ?
Pragmatically, cabinets don’t get bogged down in bureaucracy as much as committees, so it can be argued that they are more effective. So, with this in mind, in answer to your question, yes.
Or as some may say the proof of the pudding is in the eating. We know the cabinet system is going to happen because Labour have the majority on the council. Now we have to wait and see if things improve. But the argument that committees are more bureaucratic than cabinet has little to commend it. The bureaucracy tends to exist in the application of the decision not in the formulation of it.
Very articulately put, and I’m confident that the public, both for and against this system, will be looking in detail to ensure that the council is effective in everything it does.
It wasn’t in their manifesto. It puts a lot of responsibility on part-time councillors who aren’t paid much. Some have no experience in their new role or even as councillors. Labour hasn’t revealed how they were appointed or how they can be sacked. Is it all controlled by our new leader. Are most councils run in this way ?
According to data from the UK Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG), around 95% of councils in England have adopted the cabinet system of governance.
Some shocking selections Cllrs Burden, Alexander, Pumm and Muten. Dire! Is that the best labour available in their 36+ cllrs?
Muten is the servant of Sustrans and Bricycles – that’s why he allowed VG3 to go thru . It will be his legacy
Not forgetting a big shout out to Mark Prior in the Transport and Parking dept
What’s wrong with them? Muten is the only one I know off the top of my head and being high (or low) profile has little to do with competence.
On the other hand, Williams, Alexander, and Goddard are excellent selections for their roles.
The consultation was a joke – the diversity and inclusion questions at the end were longer than the “consultation” itself which was just a tick box exercise. Interesting there was no mention in the survey / consultation that the change to the Cabinet system would cost about £80K to implement, or that Cabinet members would see councillors with Cabinet positions allowances increase…
Good on the person who set up the petition, but despite Labour saying they would “listen” to residents in their manifesto, I’m pretty certain they won’t on this issue as it’s about power and control.
It will be interesting under the new system to see how Labour deal with criticism. It’s been quite incredible over the years how they have manipulated the myth that it’s a Green-run city when the reality is that Lab won the local elections in 2015, 2019 and 2023 (with Greens just running the council for a few years in the last decade when the Labour council collapsed during the pandemic). Not sure how Labour will be able to continue pointing the finger and deflecting attention from their failings under the new system – perhaps finally they may have nowhere to hide from their involvement in decisions that have blighted the city for so long (like the Cityclean debacle which they should have sorted out back in 2019 when they had the chance).
I think the challenge to how the council in this new system deals with criticism is a fair one; we will likely see some more information on this soon enough, with the consultation on engagement.
Green mismanagement was indeed that rough though; the bit scary was that the figures that the Green administration declared were not even accurate, it was worse! All the cuts we’ve seen have been to balance the books and get back on-track. This has been very clearly communicated.
However, I agree this will draw a line on the historical mistakes of the Green Party with the implementation of the new cabinet. And quite rightly, all eyes will be watching this carefully.
TBH – I think the council’s financial woes are mainly due to the cuts from central government since 2010 and increasing demand on services and not down to the financial mismanagement of either Greens or Labour. Just days before the Labour administration collapsed and Greens took over they were predicting disaster themselves and a £66 million shortfall (https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2020/07/07/coronavirus-crisis-leaves-council-facing-66m-cash-shortfall/).
Am not saying Greens got everything right during their subsequent couple of years as a minority administration, but do think even Labour’s finger pointing on finances is politically motivated when they were clearly under immense financial pressure and predicting a massive shortfall in mid 2020. It just feels a bit too convenient for Labour to cite financial doom in 2020 when they were in control for reasons outside of their control, cite doom in 2023 for reasons outside of their control and not not recognise that the doom is down to precarious local gov funding, which is why so many councils up and down the country are declaring bankruptcy. Labour did also vote for the Green’s budget in 2023 and via the committee processes Labour were on many cross-party working groups so had access to information and supported decision-making – them pleading ignorance to the fragility of the council budget now is a bit of a cop out if you ask me!
Not sure why anyone is getting hot under the collar about this. Nearly all councils use a cabinet system it is quicker, cheaper and more efficient. Labour has such a huge majority they can do what they wish under any system and no amount of petitions, questions etc will change that. The best check on this local administration now is the local press which is pretty decent.
I agree with you Nathan; whilst I appreciate the man’s spirit in creating this petition, I think the real question that Chris B is asking is more about accountability, and that’s fair. The public engagement survey shows there are a wide variety of ways the public would like to be engaged, and I’m sure there are many democratic-minded people, including myself, who will want to make sure this is achieved well.
I wonder how many of the people suddenly interested in ‘governance’ could actually name the current committees the council has, what major decisions they take and have taken recently or have even read the meeting papers?
The council from my home town operates a cabinet and scrutiny model and it works well. The scrutiny committees chose their own work programme for issues to look into and the cabinet can also ask them to do a deep dive into an issue as well
This often comes up with far better recommendations and reports than the old committee systen would ever have come up with.
And members can stil involve themselves in issues they are interested in. if they don’t that’s down to them.
One of the things I think it really positive is the closer working of healthcare and housing, I don’t believe working in silos is effective in either strategy.
Take something like sustaining tenancies, if someone hasn’t got a stable environment, how can one reasonably expect a person to be of sound mind?
The worst thing about this is that it will mean that even if Labour lose their majority after the next election, they will still hang on to the cabinet posts as long as they remain the largest party. They are digging themselves in.
And it was not in their manifesto. It’s a crooked deal.