At a special budget-focused meeting of the council’s Place Overview and Scrutiny committee on Monday 19 January, I questioned the Labour deputy leader and finance lead, Councillor Jacob Taylor.
I asked him whether he was considering the use of exceptional financial support (EFS) in his discussions with ministers about the financial settlement for local government.
Councillor Taylor didn’t address that point. Looking back, this is surprising, as it must have been around mid-January when our Labour council administration decided it did in fact need to ask for an emergency loan of £15 million.
Surely you wouldn’t forget something like that? The unprecedented local equivalent of James Callaghan, the former Labour Chancellor and later Prime Minister, going to the IMF in 1976 to ask for a bailout?
Unfortunately for us all, this budget round is full of nasty hidden surprises and dirt swept under the carpet.
It’s only when you chew forensically through the 500-odd pages of narrative and tables that the extent of Labour’s sleight of hand and own goals become clearer.
Sleight of hand: in-year position. Three years ago, the council budget was overspent by about £3 million and we had to use reserves to meet the gap. It was a bad position to be in and we Greens have never heard the end of it despite the fact that it was a joint Green-Labour decision.
This year, the budget is forecast to overspend by £4.5 million. But hang on – that’s only after we’ve used about £4 million of reserves. So the real in-year gap between budget and spend will be more than £8 million.
It’s not just a bad position to be in, it’s unprecedented and catastrophic. Because to meet the remaining gap this year, we need to use money raised from selling buildings. That money should be going towards improving our city.
Own goal: planning legal costs. This is mentioned in the budget papers as an “in-year pressure’” But no figure and no details are given. Mentioned alongside another nasty surprise this year worth about £4.5 million in extra costs, the figure must be big. Maybe a million, maybe two?
So what was the big planning decision this year that might have led to such costs? We can only guess that this is about the Brighton Gasworks development, in East Brighton, which was rejected by our Planning Committee and subsequently granted on appeal.
Now, the Planning Committee is quasi-judicial and supposed to be apolitical and all planning councillors know the financial risk of voting against a contentious application that might be allowed on appeal.
But the stakes are far higher with a development of that scale as the legal costs for both sides go up exponentially.
Why aren’t we being given this detail? Labour have a majority on the Planning Committee. Were there local political reasons for planning councillors to vote against this development?
Glossing over the cracks. What’s clear about this budget – and an absolute tragedy – is that this is a desperate time for our council financially.
Services are being cut across the board, costs are rising for residents in council tax and so are a whole range of fees and charges.
The Greens vs Labour Argument on Finances. A tale as old as time.
I’m having deja vu, because the criticisms Sykes uses here about using EFS, which the CFO explained to him in good detail at the Place meeting, were what the Greens had complained about back in 20-23 for NOT using. It’s just another example of the incoherence of the argument.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PdQOB2PpsI&t=399s
His aspirations are things Labour are already doing. The second home council tax premium is already at the maximum level allowed by law; Regulations on STLs are coming into law, with the national C5 class usage, alongside the landlord register. There are rumours that RTB won’t exist, as part of the reform we know is incoming.
And criticising the planning committee? I mean, I’m not the greatest fan of Lyons, if that wasn’t abundantly clear, but making libelous comments on their integrity is quite a serious accusation. The information around the objections to the Gasworks and the Appeal decision is all public; he could answer his own question by reading those documents.
Or is Cllr Sykes suggesting that the overwhelming commentary, public attendance at multiple meetings over several years, and the academic evidence prepared by professors that was presented is not worth advocating? If concerns were raised over years of consultation and formal processes, the outcome reflects the weight of national policy, and not political interference.
Why is this generation so utterly obsessed with ensuring millennials and gen Z have no where to live, have no jobs, demand all of the things boomers were handed for free on a plate are removed, and then vote down almost every policy that proposes to put right what their generation has obliterated?
Same Green Party that threw away £1 Million of parking spaces along Madeira drive ?