Policy-making committees have officially been scrapped as Brighton and Hove City Council voted through a new constitution.
Council leader Bella Sankey said that the new arrangements would enhance public engagement, streamline council decision-making and bring more openness, accountability and effective overview and scrutiny.
The move places most decisions in the hands of 10 Labour councillors in a cabinet let by Councillor Sankey, with a further four councillors acting as advisers.
Two overview and scrutiny committees – one for “place” and the other for “people” – will have the ability to review decisions.
Councillor Sankey said: “The ambition of this administration is to deliver governance arrangements that truly serve our council and city, moving away from the paralysis of no overall control and enabling efficient decision-making which allows us to unlock this city’s potential.”
She said that public questions, deputations and petitions would still feature at meetings of the full council and scrutiny committees and be extended to monthly meetings of the cabinet.
Councillors would also be able to ask questions at full council, committee and cabinet meetings – and group leaders or nominees could make representations at cabinet meetings.
Work is under way to extend public engagement and this could include options such as question times and citizen assemblies.
Green councillor Pete West said that he was unsure whether the new constitution was ready for adoption.
He said that the council had previously considered changes to the constitution through a cross-party working group that would consider all angles and serve up “fully baked” proposals.
Councillor West said: “It’s a pity the administration hasn’t taken that approach. The cabinet system itself excludes debate and proper consideration of other voices.
“My main beef with this cabinet system proposal is the absence of cabinet member decision-making meetings which we had in the previous iteration.”
He was concerned that cabinet members would be able to make spending decisions up to £1 million in private, without effective oversight by other councillors.
Labour councillor Jacob Taylor, one of two deputy leaders, responded. He is the new cabinet member for finance and city regeneration.
He said that the cabinet would deliver a better-performing council and that this was not a power-grab by Labour or a way of avoiding scrutiny.
Councillor Taylor said: “Many people feel this council has fallen behind in recent decades, particularly when delivering the basic services that contribute to the look and feel of the city.
“In my view, a significant contributor to that decline has been the lack of political majority, combined with the committee system that has led to a siloed organisation and a lack of clear direction.”
Conservative councillor Anne Meadows said that the oversight previously exercised by seven policy committees would be carried out by just two scrutiny committees. There would also be “task and finish groups”.
She said: “You have transport, housing delivery (and) waste management alongside parks and open spaces, toilets and environmental services – all huge services in their own right now crammed into one scrutiny panel or committee.
“This is a recipe for disaster and I can’t wait to see this fall apart as task and finish groups want or need priority.”
She called for a halt to land sales until risks had been properly considered – in a veiled reference to the prospect of the council selling Patcham Court Farm to the Royal Mail.
The cabinet would be personally responsible, she said, for the “clean up” needed should the water supply be polluted.
The vote in favour of switching from committees to a cabinet was 40 to 11, with Labour and Independent councillors backing the move and Greens and Conservatives against.
The cabinet is made up of 10 councillors.
- Councillor Bella Sankey – leader of the council
- 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
Four cabinet advisers have been appointed.
- 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
Now they can hide away from scrutiny. How typical of all politicians of whatever colour.
Cllrs Muten, Alexander, Burden, Pumm are as shallow as a puddle. The others do have some depth and experience on their portfolio. They would never get that high level decision making power at the workplace.
Speaking of Cllr. Alexander, she’s been heavily involved in the emergency food networks over many years ensuring vulnerable people and children have access to food supplies, so her appointment regarding food insecurity is an excellent match.
What’s wrong with Pumm? I met him briefly and he seemed pretty switched on.
Only one problem.
The public they pretend to serve do not approve the cabinet system and we were never asked.
Nor was the cabinet system on Labour’s election manifesto in May 2023 or it may have severely impacted on their votes.
So £80 000 or more public money has been wasted on this bullies’ charter with a constantly rewritten, to the point of meaningless, council ‘constitution’.
Nor did we agree to Council Leader Sankey appointing a second Number 2 paid for out of the public purse.
Shame on Labour. They have nothing to be self-congratulatory about.
You tout the same nonsense in different posts when you’ve been told about deputies multiple times. Do better Barry, you occasionally make interesting points, however repeating flawed arguments serves you little here.
Spoken like a direct beneficiary of the closed cabinet system. Come on – tell us what you personally will get out of it.
It’s been a while since you sprouted THAT particular ad hominem. It’s still fallacious and a poor deflection of criticism.
Barry is right on this one. Labour did not mention their plans to adopt a new governance model in their manifesto (that’s fact), and the “consultation” was tick box job that had more content in the diversity and inclusion section at the end. There wasn’r a question in the consultation asking whether you supported the change or not, just a few questions on different ways the council could engage with residents in the city.
This change Labour are imposing on this city results in a top down approach, which really doesn’t reflect the mixed views and make up of residents in Brighton and Hove. Labour secured under half of the votes in the city, so whilst they had a stonking result in 2023 that led to them having a majority of councillors, they do not get a majority of votes when individual votes are totted up.
Irrespective of who the individual is at the top, anyone whose party secured under half of the votes in the city being able to pretty much influence all decision making isn’t a healthy way to govern – and could be seen as a power grab. If the rumours are true that Bella wasn’t short-listed as a parliamentary candidate and overlooked when Labour made their Brighton Pavilion selection – perhaps this is a way to secure a role with influence in the meantime as a stop gap, rather than try again and put her hat in the ring in Arundel or Hastings as a parliamentary candidate there. Just a theory – but might explain why it wasn’t in Labour’s manifesto in 2023, and the idea sprang up a few months after Labour made their Pavilion selection.
Aside from any internal wranglings and theories, I don’t think the move to a Cabinet system is a good one, as a concentration of power and control brings many negatives.
I fully agree with Preston Parker here, this was not in their manifesto and the first thing they did after this power grab, was to award themselves a pay rise. The optics of this are terrible, how a Labour council fresh out of a budget of swingeing cuts, can award themselves a par rise is beyond parody – it is disgraceful. I bitterly regret voting Labour, their manifesto was a work of fiction and they have gas lit the whole city. Now they have the total power they crave, what will they do with it?
Pay rises always happen this time of year, and it’s based on independent recommendations, so unfortunately you cannot attribute the cabinet restructure to it, as it is very standard stuff.
I don’t share your doomsaying, I’m afraid. We have an overwhelming heap of evidence that cabinets work, a system that has been adopting by the majority of the countries councils already.
The leader of the council has awarded herself a pay rise of over £15000. I can assure you that does not happen every year. The incremental increase for regular councillors is fair, the huge increases for the autocrats in the cabinet is a disgrace
Again, these are recommendations by an independent body, standard practice to pretty much just accept as is to avoid the very thing you’re accusing.
Your ire is better served towards the recommending body it seems.
Who authorised her second deputy leader as well and why the need for one?
Why not do some research Barry?
ALL the documents are on the councils meeting pages on the website.
Go and have a read of them and inform yourself.
Even if ALL the documents are on the council’s website, they don’t contain ALL the information.
However, what the documents do confirm that “The appointment of Cabinet Members is the prerogative of the Leader of the Council”. Therefore, it just reaffirms the concerns that many people have about the changes being imposed – ie it’s a top heavy decision-making process that ultimately results in the Leader of the Council having ultimate control over the 290,000 residents in the city.
The current Leader entered politics just 18 months ago and received around 1,500 votes in her own ward. It’s quite possible and OK for people to be fast-tracked into positions of power in some instances, but for that new Leader to come in, scrap the previous constitution, scrap the political assistants from opposition parties, award herself and the top tier of Cabinet members she’s appointed hefty pay increases, and to decrease opportunities for public engagement, is questionable at the very least.
I would also suggest that when anyone reads papers for council meetings, rather than think about the information in them, think about what information is not in them. If the administration in control are hoping to reach a certain conclusion, “consultations” and reports can be steered to support that conclusion.
In this example,, the documents I’ve see about the consultation say “A number of respondents raised concerns about a potential reduction in opportunities for resident participation under the new governance system” but don’t go on to say how many people expressed concerns. Why not – how do we know that the majority of respondents did not oppose the move.
Chris – if everyone took everything they read at face value and didn’t ask questions, then that would be alarming. Genuinely hope you don’t really believe everything you’re told all the time, or that you never question something just because it’s written in an official document! Difficult to fully “inform” yourself if what you’re reading may be leaving some important information out.
At leaast I do read the committee papers. Which is more than some posting on here do.
In fact I’ve been reading them for a number of councils since I was 18. I know how to read between the lines. I know how councils and political parties operate.
That the cabinet is appointed by the leader is what happens in councils across the land.
BTW I have no issue with people asking questions but when their questions are answewred in publicaslly available information which they can’t be bothered to read that annoys me.
I’m with Chris on this. A little reading goes a long way to be apprised. Makes for much more interesting discussion too when both sides are informed.
Blairite power grab
Good for you that you read the council papers online Chris, so do I. But they aren’t that accessible to people for a whole variety of reasons, eg people may not know where to find them (the council’s website is not user friendly), and when they do, they are not written in a format that is always clear to people or in plain English. Excellent organisations like Possability People and Speak Out could probably give you more information about the difficulties there can be accessing things like council documents and engaging with decision-making.
I don’t know who has and who has read the papers in this thread, but either way, you should never assume that people haven’t read something because they “can’t be bothered”, even if that line is simply being used to deflect from the underlying point being made about the change of system being a power grab.
They are very easy to find. Just google ‘brighton council meetings’
They are written in plain English. True planning and budget documents can be more complex but on the whole they are very comprehensible.
It’s quite easy to identify those that haven’t bothered to read the papers because they make comments about things that are included in the reports. There are some usual suspects posting on this page who are masters at that.
And no I’m not deflecting from anything. Just pointing out there is a heck of a lot of info out there about this – and has been for months – including articles by B&H News
It’s not just as simple as googling (it would be great if it was and googling led you to the exact item being discussed at the exact meeting you’re trying to find out info on). You then go to a page and need to pick the right link to get the right agenda, then (presuming you know that the issue you are looking for is being discussed at Full Council as opposed to another meeting) you need to know that the agenda for “Full Council” in the list of options will be listed under the option that just says “Council”. Then you need to click a further option to browse meetings and agendas for the meeting type you’re trying to find, find the right date and then scroll through multiple items listed on the agenda and try and find the right one where the issue you want to look at is listed and read through that and all the multiple documents that prob come with it.
You could just click on the full agenda pack when you’ve found the right meeting, but they are usually hundreds of pages long. Participating in council processes is not made easy for people unfamiliar with it. Like I said, lots of information is not in the report anyway – like how many respondees to the “consultation” expressed concerns about the changes full stop. There’s a nice pie chart of different ways the council could engage, but the bit about ACTUAL responses and comments is limited.
Yes there is a hack of a lot of information out there, but it’s pretty difficult to find for lots of people in the city, and lots of people won’t know it’s there. What is there is is not complete either and omits some information that should be there. That’s why things like the residents’ petition opposing the change has just sprung up only now, as lots of people were unaware of the changes being pushed through until recent weeks and they saw media coverage of it. (https://www.change.org/p/give-residents-a-vote-on-the-future-of-brighton-hove-city-council).
Anyway, I assume that many people have better things to do with their time than read through hundreds of pages of council docs. That doesn’t mean they can’t have an opinion, or that opinion might not be valid. You’re entitled to your opinion, whether you’ve read background documents or not, I just happen to disagree with you and think the changes will result in a top down council that’s not helpful for the city and will stifle residents’ say in decision-making.