Campaigners have criticised the way that the council awarded a £19 million contract to provide temporary housing for homeless people in Brighton and Hove.
But the Labour leader of the council Bella Sankey defended the move, saying that it was urgent because of increasing need and soaring costs.
One critic, Charles Harrison, from the Brighton and Hove Housing Coalition, questioned the wisdom of awarding a six-year contract to a company incorporated less than three years ago – in May 2023.
Mr Harrison said that Brighton and Hove City Council had entered into a rushed contract with Base One and he raised concern’s about the company’s lack of assets.
The council published a “transparency notice” on its website on Friday 2 January setting out basic details of the £3 million-a-year deal for Base One to provide 209 homes, with 24-hour support.
At a meeting of the full council on Thursday (29 January) Mr Harrison said that the coalition was aware of the increased demand facing the council – and the high cost of booking nightly emergency and temporary housing from private providers.
He asked why such a large contract had been so rushed and why no alternative options had been explored and no proper public scrutiny had taken place at a council meeting.
Mr Harrison said that the company had assets of £55,000 making it a relatively small company to have an £18.8 million contract over six years.
He also said that it did not have a proven track record of delivering services although it was paid more than £840,000 by the council in the first eight months of the current financial year.
He said: “A lot can happen is six years. I haven’t seen any reference to risk analysis, so whether the assumptions may change in that six-year period.
“Has there been any kind of risk register formed? Are there any plans for risk workshops to develop mitigation strategies?”
Councillor Sankey said that the cost of providing temporary housing was “significant” and had grown in recent years.
The council had allocated £28 million for temporary housing in the 2025-26 budget and was currently forecast to overspend that sum by £4 million.
She said that the council has gone from booking 114 units of temporary housing a night in 2022 to 520 by November last year.
This had led to the council facing much higher costs compared with longer-term temporary housing.
More than 2,000 households currently relied on temporary housing in Brighton and Hove, the council was told.
Councillor Sankey said: “This council therefore took an urgent decision to stabilise temporary accommodation provision and address a significant in-year overspend for nightly paid placements.
“This was necessary to help us address an anticipated in-year overspend while maintaining the continuity of our service for Brighton and Hove residents experiencing homelessness.”
Councillor Sankey said that she heard Mr Harrison’s concerns and, ideally, the decision would have been made by the council’s cabinet, with debate and public questions.
She said that cost pressures linked to temporary housing were well known and the council had taken radical steps to reduce those costs.
Another member of the Brighton and Hove Housing Coalition, Daniel Harris, was supporting a group of mothers who wanted to address the council’s cabinet meeting on Thursday 22 January, all of whom are living long term in temporary housing with their autistic children.
He was angry to learn that the deadline for seeking to do so was Monday 12 January, two days before the agenda was published.
Mr Harris said: “These are all Brighton families and all have protected characteristics and their children are most certainly adversely impacted by decisions not taken to cabinet.
“I consider this to be indirect discrimination and request you level the playing field.”
Mother-of-four Keira Beck was due to lead the deputation of mothers. She said that the council had created a £30 million “wealth siphon” to private landlords.
The Housing Coalition called for an independent audit into the rushed and secret elements of the £18.8 million direct award to Base One.
It also called for families with children who have an education, health and care plan (EHCP) or disability to be given the highest priority.
Shannon Bourne said that she slept on a box-room floor and had been trapped in limbo in temporary housing for 14 years.
She criticised the early deadline for public involvement, saying: “The council effectively silenced me before I could even see what was on the agenda. This is a breach of procedural fairness.
“If the council can process written questions up until the 16th, there is no objective justification for forcing disabled parents to submit complex oral deputations 10 days before the meeting.”
The Base One contract was confirmed without debate by the full council.
If you check the two company directors of Base One Holdings Ltd on Companies House:
Karl Paul Edwards has been a Director in 13 companies, all dissolved and resigned from except for 5, where he is still listed as being an active Director. Sophie Law-Smith has been a Director in 10 companies, all resigned from or dissolved except for 5, where she is still listed as being an active Director. No apparent website for Base One Holdings Ltd ether. What could possibly go wrong with awarding a company incorporated 8 May 2023, with Micro company accounts listing assets of £9,018, and with no proven track record in homeless housing provision, a £19m contract for the supply of homeless accommodation and how can any contract be so emergency that it seemingly overlooks required fiduciary procedures and established providers?
Ms Sankey needs to resign if she believes this is acceptable. Along with the 151 Officer who presumably signed it off.
You’re aware of the budgetary overspend that needs to be addressed which is primarily driven by spot-purchasing temporary accommodation? It was detailed in the article.
I can see the financial argument, especially if you take an average of spot purchasing of £125 per night. Just on this contract, there’s a potential saving of about £6.5m. That saving may well be worth it, even if the company is young, and the scaling of foundational skills are transferable to larger projects.
Directly awarded contracts for big ticket items cannot by given willy nilly to start ups in the hope they might scale up and deliver as they go along! How did the Council even know of their existence and what established providers did they consider before deciding that the unknown one was the best use of £19m of public money? What properties do they use and how many homeless have they accommodated so far in their two and a half year company history?
Even emergency awards require the following
Key Criteria for Supplier Screening:
Capacity and Capability: Suppliers must demonstrate the immediate capacity to deliver the required goods, services, or works.
Suitability Assessment: While formal, long-term tender processes are skipped, authorities must still ensure the supplier is fit to perform the contract and, where possible, conduct rapid due diligence on their financial and technical ability.
Suppliers must be screened against mandatory and discretionary exclusion grounds (e.g., fraud, bribery, insolvency).
Conflict of Interest: Rigorous identification and management of conflicts of interest are essential to ensure fairness and transparency.
Value for Money & Risk: Although urgent, the procurement should, where possible, achieve value for money and manage the risks of high pricing (e.g., using capped prices or, in some cases, negotiating with multiple suppliers for a fast turnaround).
Strict Necessity: The scope of the contract must be limited strictly to what is needed to address the immediate emergency.
In the spirit of what you’re trying to say, GPT has listed generic procurement principles, but you haven’t identified a single point where the council failed to meet them in this case.
Which specific regulation was breached?
Which delegated authority was exceeded?
Which due diligence requirement was not carried out?
An emergency contract does not require a long trading history, only evidence of capacity and risk control, and £19m will be a framework maximum, not an upfront payment.
They haven’t been getting spot purchased rates anywhere near that Ben.
Equality Impact Assessment
The Legal Advice Given to wave this through urgently, is weak and a gray legal area. That’s why disclosure of part two is needed. The arguments they are using for not disclosing competition is weak, they have told us the nightly rate, £41. We know the units and contract award value and length. Why not show the papers?
The Homes People are living currently, they have made 800k since the beginning of the financial year, but what about last year? You will see they have had there units ramped up. But nowhere near the 209 units, that’s £3.3m annually.
There is no conspiracy in the budget is £32m, the stats put out highlight the green and labour coalition on housing was actually working better as the got the numbers down. People need to see the numbers for nightly spot pursued, block booked, and leases aka longer term from 2016 when I started all this and today.
Been going chambers for years, seen so many leaders and housing directors come and go seen the worst of them.
The notice for contract awards was done on the 16th or was it, as the webpage was not even created then, so that was a bizarre claim.
Who replied… we know nothing.
I think as of now still, it’s possible the opposition have still not seen the part two papers under the current ways of working.
In December we were told the council messed up the numbers in spot purchased accomodation and got the budgets wrong, 7 months into the financial year, the next month this contract comes up.
It’s manufactured.
The prevention numbers, look at how many were prevented vs presentations, where the homeless prevention grant money is going? £10.2m annually.
Outcomes for the people living there?
Independant Feedback from those residents?
Proof of room inspections?
Due dilligence if provider cannot meet contract and goes into administration?
The contracts are better than under peckhams era, no one is saying this, but it’s still a £19m award to a company no one locally knows, no one on the frontline of homelessness.
Due diligent putting a sticky plaster only delays a section 114. Leaves the mess to the next administration.
Ben why don’t you write an opinion piece here on your solutions. We would all love to hear them.
Oh and we all know what happened to the money lend for the I-360 and the write offs, people council taxes go up for failures and they are bringing a lot of revenue into this council, it’s just not being brave enough to swap the private sector up in the most part and go in-house, create effective profit rather then just being a purchase order provider actually do more around housing. Insted it a new i360 type loss to the public purse every two years and kicking the can down the road to the next administration. Which is unlikely to be labour.
I give housing a bashing because the evidence is there, they lose Onbudsman Complaints, there losing tribunals, they will soon be challenged on the democratic gatekeeping, putting barriers and stopping those with protected charactics from public participation to speak out on this very issue, for their own political gain.
Not conspiracy theories at all, this is the public, citizens, residents living in temporary accommodation, on behalf of the 36 dead last year, three in Eastbourne recently, spates of suicides. People are dying in these nightly licence places, and privatising management to an already broken system is unethical.
This is about, accountability, transparency and truely fixing the broken manufactured neoliberal system for a local community wealth model.
You have a nasty habit of conflating multiple things, and no-one likes reading sprawl, so let’s tackle them separately:
First, legality. Disagreeing with the legal advice or describing it as grey is not the same as demonstrating a breach.
Second, transparency. I agree that fuller disclosure would improve confidence, particularly around assumptions, risk mitigation, and break clauses. That is a valid criticism. But the lack of publication of Part Two papers is not evidence that due diligence did not occur. Those are different claims. A question, rather than going in half-cocked with accusations, would serve you better!
Third, value and outcomes. This is the most important debate. Spot purchasing versus block provision, prevention spend effectiveness, inspection regimes, and provider failure risk all deserve scrutiny, especially when, and I’ve read some of the news articles you’ve been involved with, private providers offering less than acceptable accommodations and appearing to be out just to make a quick buck. Again, I would be more inclined to ask questions than accuse.
All sounds a bit ‘tasty’ !
I wonder how many companies you have run Tracy?
So no one who hasn’t run a company gets to comment then?
Of course, one can post and comment, but one would reasonably exercise caution before claiming conspiratorial things without basic knowledge, right?
Said the BHCC Labour paid apologist, right ?
Unfortunately, it just turns out that Tracy often says uninformed things. Correcting logically unsound comments doesn’t make one an apologist, and you have to question, if I’m often being made to take that stance, and an ad hominem is the only thing you can say in retort, that reflects more on the quality of debate from our fellow cognomens, right?
Someone should follow the money and figure out who these people were friendly with at the council to get this money signed off and find out why on earth they agreed to it. There may be more to this than just incompetence.
Even if everything turns out to be above board, they are not going to have much time to run a homeless accommodation operation if there is only 2 of them and they are Directors of 5 companies each.
Being a company director isn’t always about taking part in the daily activities, may just be a part time advisor with financial expertise or any number of things, lots of work by companies is sub contracted out, could be anything that doesn’t need full time from them, they, him, her, it
Employees, Tracy. You posted the document yourself.
A ginormous £19m temporary accommodation contract personally hurried through by Council Leader Sankey between 31st Dec 2025 – 2nd Jan 2026 to a Minnie Mouse contractor with no public profile. And surprise, surprise, no entry for this contract is showing on the Goverment contract finder website. Bye bye Bella and hello Mr Taylor?
Absence from Contract Finder is not evidence of illegality or secrecy. Not all contracts appear immediately or at all on Contract Finder. James knows this. James has been told this before. James is being told this, yet again.
Absence from Contract Finder is not evidence of council legal compliance with Public Contracts Regulations 2015, good practice or transparency. Nor is it good public optics and gives rise to public and media suspicion as to motivation for major omisssions. Contract Finder does not exist to be updated as and when BHCC feels like it. Benjamin should not need to be told such basics about regulatory financial recording. Will Benjamin need telling again? More concerning, why doesn’t Benjamin believe in the execution of proper formal processes concerning council expenditure from the public purse?
You are now deliberately conflating issues. You know this because it has been explained to you repeatedly. You are entitled to criticise the optics or the policy choice. What you are not doing is providing evidence of illegality. Repeating insinuations and dressing them up as suspicion does not change that. James knows this. James has been told this before. James is being told this, yet again.
Yet again, everyone you don’t agree with is wrong and must be insulted and talked down to. You are such a one-trick pony, Benjamin, yawn. I will put it simply for you. There is NO excuse for not doing things properly in this case. None. Not even if the Town Hall was on fire. Ms Sankey clearly assumed everyone would be too occupied with the New Year to notice what she was up to. Well she misjudged. There are many individuals keeping a hawk eye on housing issues in this city.
This stinks Ben. It was not even debated, when mums living in temporary accomodation try and force more the council closed them down, The part two papers discussed in-house options, they mention savings. There are a lot of variables here,
Against current failed model. Against better in-house options, against factors like voids, but we have seen fraud actually, landlords claiming rooms and usage and tenant never there. The turn a blind eye. Could ensure the rooms are being used. There is no other stuff. People talk thankfully…
A lot more to come out, just getting warmed up, you focus on the valley and let us lobbyists press the council on their weak legal points, due dilligence, and systemic issues, this is just the beginning.
Daniel, I don’t doubt the strength of feeling here, or that people living in temporary accommodation have experienced real harm under successive systems. You, in particular, have experienced that in a very real sense. That deserves scrutiny, not dismissal.
Where we continue to part company is the method. Allegations of fraud, bad faith, or illegality need evidence, not vagueposting or “people talk”. If there is substantiated fraud, that should be referred and investigated properly. If there are systemic failures, they should be evidenced. Otherwise, it’s extremely weak lobbying, right?
I have already said that an explanation of why in-house options were discounted would be useful here. That is a legitimate criticism. What I am not prepared to do is treat suspicion as proof or collapse multiple issues into a single accusation.
People should argue policy choices; that is healthy. But precision matters.
I smell a big fat rat!
Moving forward, what provisions have been made for future contract and competitive tendering process? Are there checks and balances in place to protect public money and get the best value for money? Are there punitive clauses or opportunities to reset or renegotiate or indeed a break clause? These are basic questions that the council have had the time to contemplate and initiate.
All very good questions, I’d also add what is the threshold or logic for using emergency provisioning mechanisms?
Sadly time and time again – whether local or national or international – the worst decisions are made when made in a rush – and due process and transparency is bypassed in the well intentioned spirit of extreme urgency.
The PPE procurement process during the pandemic being a case in point with the NAO identifying startling levels of both fraud / cronyism and simply poor procurement choices stemming from a lack of due diligence.
The best way to validate whether this decision genuinely represents value for money is to be more transparent about it. For example allow an independent assessment of the decision. Which feels valid when this is a long term commitment (6 years) and significant amount of tax payer funds (£19m).
To be fair there do appear to be a number of unanswered questions as to how this decision was made in such short order and importantly what other options where considered – discounted – and why.
Homelessness is not exactly a new problem so maybe the council could explain how it was taken by surprise over emergency night accommodation to “extreme urgency” level? Also why was the contract arranged between 31st December and 2nd Jan when most council colleagues were on holiday? This seems very odd.
I can’r argue with that – I appreciate the repeated message back regarding the incurred and forecast overspend by the Council for this housing needs to be addressed – but it seems like a big leap to then sign up a 6 year contract within such a short window – and then not be transparent about that decision. In line with my first comment I do like long term procurement commitments borne out of extreme urgency / limited due diligence – its a proven recipe for poor decision making.
You’ve cut through a lot of our chatter here and gotten to the heart of it. Very well said, Alex!