A Green councillor has criticised the way that the council’s budget forecasts are presented to senior councillors, describing a new-style report as “lacking clarity”.
Councillor Ollie Sykes made his comments at a meeting of Brighton and Hove City Council’s cabinet yesterday (Thursday 16 July).
He spoke out a few weeks after slamming Labour for using “smoke and mirror” financial tricks to break even at the end of the past financial year.
The figures for May – the second month of the 2026-27 financial year – forecast an overspend of nearly £20 million, with risks totalling a further £17 million.
But the new analysis accompanying the figures no longer shows a year-on-year comparison with previous years’ overspends and forecasts.
Councillor Sykes said: “The administration’s ‘month two’ finance paper unfortunately presents a toxic combination of lack of clarity, uncertainty and bad news.
“I don’t remember a similar position before in Brighton and Hove City Council.
“But the main theme has to be Labour’s budget control – or lack of it. At the last cabinet I said the council is running on fumes.
“Two and a half weeks later it’s clear that even those fumes have run out. All of a sudden, Labour is projecting a £37 million overspend.
“The last time we got close to this was at the height of covid in 2020 when we saw a projected £36 million overspend.”
The coronavirus pandemic brought uncertainty and was unprecedented – but now he said that he was concerned that the council was asking for £30 million more in exceptional financial support from the government on top of £15 million borrowed last year.
Councillor Sykes called for cross-party working and said that people in the Brighton and Hove wanted the two “progressive” parties to work together.
The Labour deputy leader of the council, Jacob Taylor, defended the new-style report, saying that it was trying to show on a single page all the key information about the various pressures on different parts of the budget.
Councillor Taylor said that the first report of the financial year showed that the council was in a “worrying position”.
The Labour finance lead said: “Clearly this council and many others continue to operate in an extremely challenging environment, where demand-led services, inflationary pressures and broader global economic uncertainty continue to place significant strain on our finances.
“The whole point of these reports is to identify the risks early to allow us to take corrective action or mitigations to strengthen our positions before they become unmanageable.”
The new style of the reports was intended to make them clearer, more concise and easier to understand.
Councillor Taylor said that the big drivers of the projected deficit were the increase in demand-led care services for children and adults. The budget for schools could also end up being £6.6 million in the red.
Placements for children in care were currently forecast at £3 million over budget. The report said that this was a difficult area to manage because of the high costs of residential placements.
The council had budgeted for 25 placements but the council was currently housing 29 children in care.
Work was under way to place more children in foster care but there was a high turnover and more children with complex and high-risk needs entering the system.
Councillor Taylor said that there has been a 6 per cent increase in the number of adults needing social care and a 5 per cent rise in costs.
A detailed breakdown predicted an £11.3 million overspend in adult social care, £10.6 million of which was from community care placements and support.
The temporary housing budget was also forecast to overspend by £1.3 million.
Councillor Sykes highlighted a £1.2 million forecast overspend in “city operations”, with notable pressure from concessionary bus fares, the venues and events budget and costs linked to the rubbish and recycling fleet.
So…Councillor Sykes is complaining about the lack of clarity in the document whilst using the improved clarity to criticise the alleged lack of clarity?
Benjamin™ is Labour councillor BTW. Only he thinks people don’t that 😉
He’s not, although he might want to be.
Nope, but I’ll add that to the ever growing list of incorrect guesses, Jane. Basic logic would tell you that the journalists on here wouldn’t allow a councillor to make such commentary, particularly around the by-elections.
Remind us again how an almost unknown individual became a first time Labour Councillor on 4th May 2023 and before the month was out was made Deputy Leader of the Council, Deputy Leader of local Labour and was put in charage of a c£1bn a year city budget and the city’s infrastructure. It used to take a new Councillor an average of 10-15 years of solid graft and re-election luck before they attained a senior leadership position. Many residents are increasingly worried at the level of power this previously almost-unknown individual has been given over our finances and infrastructure. Based on what screening process exactly? The fact he is also a director at Bank of America? Who decided to fast track him and why? This is not an accusation, but a questioning of the process. Councillor Sykes is right to challenge Taylor’s dumbing down of the balance sheet and seeming inability to control budgets. We need full financial disclosure,
I believe we’ve discussed this before. Is that not an appeal to tradition? And if so, isn’t that logically flawed; because it’s also factually inaccurate when it comes to how cabinets function in reality? In practice, appointments are routinely based on technical skills, expertise, and portfolio fit, not just length of service. Why wouldn’t you choose as the big banker to have responsibility for finances? Meritocracy is just common sense. You’re also assuming someone just appears out of thin air to stand as a councillor. Unless you’re Reform, who seem to have little in the way of a vetting process, given how many councillors they’re losing each week – every party candidate at some point, whether it was Sykes, Taylor, or any other party councillor, has been selected by their party after some form of internal assessment and selection process.
Making a fairly impenetrable document easier to read is surely a good thing, right? You ask for greater clarity, making it more accessible is one way of doing that. Although, if there’s more to do be done to continue to improve that, then absolutely. I watched the council meeting this week, I actually thought there was less point-scoring then it sometimes ends up being this time round.
I am not aware of any small print requiring me to ‘debate’ anything with you Benjamin TM. Who are you anyway? Some self-appointed oojamaflip? There was a good reason Councillors weren’t immediately promoted to Senior roles not so long ago. They had to prove themselves as good and trustworthy Councillors FIRST. That takes time.
This was not about tradition but common sense. And clearly immediate promotion has failed if this Councillor is out of his depth, struggling to balance the budget and also to be publicly transparent about it as is required. Councillor Sykes is one of the brightest and most financially astute Councillors we have. I would rather he be in charge of the city budget any day of the week.
Councillor Sykes has also done his appreticeship as a Councillor previously and a well respected one at that. Meanwhile our Council Leader has found a spare £53,OOO cash to splash for a dodgy campaign called ‘Operation Black Vote’. Patronising at best, racist at worst in assuming there is anything preventing anyone of any colour standing as a city councillor. There is not.
Of course not, but it is retreading old ground for the sake of being adverserial. Anyway, considering the finances have been in the healthiest they’ve been in recent years, speaks to his and the officers competency, particularly because you have to account for the difficulty that councils across the country are in.
Sykes is an experienced councillor, so when he asks questions like this repeatedly over multiple council meetings, it doesn’t speak to incompetence, it suggests bad faith. At least, that is what I see.
I have evidence labour has put up rents for temporary accomodation households where they are the landlord, they own the asset by over 130%
This explains everything Cllr Sykes says, they are essentially passing the costs onto the most vulnerable to fund themselves out of the mess they have created.
The other way they are getting income, not content with what 50% council tax hike over 10 years, not to mention the rent hikes linked to world troubles and consumer index.
They serve themselves before the electorate and citizens, if you want change vote labour out in preety much every ward like you did the Tories.
Placements for children in care were currently forecast at £3 million over budget—budgeted for 25 placements but currently housing 29 children in care. Does that mean placing 4 children costs an extra £3 million…. £750,000 per child per year? That is unfathomable.
The costs are astronomical. The council keep taking kids away from famalies, 3 kids in long term foster makes them £2500 a week!
£10k a month, 120k a year, non taxable. Over £1million for 3 kids placed over ten years. Wow!
Council are footing this bill, rather than focusing on the core care issues and trying to resolve / give birth parents training, rehabilitation.
I get the need to take the children out of chaotic households, there are a lot of parents who should be better at exposing the children to a good life, and they often are too ill themselves to provide the high level of care needed.
But where there is family who can take these kids on they should be kept within the family.
Are you saying the Council MAKES money from having children in care or LOSES money from having children in care? Where does the money come from?
Here’s a cheekier, more Brighton-style version that still makes the point:
Benjamin, you’ve slightly missed the point there.
Nobody’s saying reports shouldn’t be easier to read. The issue is that “simpler” shouldn’t mean leaving out the bits that let people see how things compare year on year. That’s not clarity – that’s less information dressed up as more clarity.
And calling scrutiny “bad faith” is a bit rich. Opposition councillors are literally there to ask awkward questions. If nobody challenged the figures, we’d all be asking what they’re being paid for.
As for saying the council’s finances are in their healthiest state, that’s a brave claim when there’s a forecast overspend of nearly £20 million, another £17 million of risks sitting in the wings, and the council is asking the Government for exceptional financial support.
You can polish the dashboard all you like, Ben, but if the engine light’s flashing, people are still going to lift the bonnet.
…Oh dear Rupert.
Well said that man.
Benjamin TM, the man, or possibly bot, has a habit of zeroing in only on the aspects he is willing to comment on whilst ignoring the rest of any potential political or financial shenanigans as if it’s perfectly proper behaviour and how dare anyone question it. One wonders if he’d be quite so generous in the case of a Reform Councillor who just happened to be the council Finance Lead or would he rip them apart, Rottweiler-style?
Pretty unconvincing when you’re ignoring an actual generated message, with the prompt left in, James.
Anyway, Reform are proven to be incompetent. We can take examples like Colchester, who have failed to set up leadership, and their councillor, Sarah Wood, says she “doesn’t understand the council constitution.”