Brighton and Hove City Council looks likely to break even in the current financial year despite earlier concerns that a £15 million overspend was in prospect.
Budget papers going before councillors on Thursday (8 February) forecast “a virtual break-even” with a £21,000 overspend in the council’s “general fund revenue budget” – a budget of almost £250 million.
The forecast was made in a report about the council’s financial position at the end of December, with the 2023-24 financial year due to end at the end of March.
The position is an improvement even from two months earlier when the forecast was a £2.8 million overspend, down from the £15 million overspend predicted in the summer.
Labour deputy leader Jacob Taylor told a meeting of the full council at Hove Town Hall on Thursday (1 February) that he was pleased with the improved position.
Councillor Taylor, who speaks for his party on finance, said that – unlike many other councils across the country – Brighton and Hove City Council was not facing bankruptcy.
He said that the council started the current year in a difficult financial situation because of a £3.5 million overspend in 2022-23 – before Labour took over from the Greens.
Councillor Taylor said: “I’m really pleased the papers show we are breaking even on our in-year budget. That’s not by luck.
“That was done because very early on in our administration we put in place spending controls, recruitment controls (and) we got hold of agency spend across the organisation.
“We managed it really tightly and now we’re coming in on budget and we perhaps might even underspend on this year’s annual budget.”
Some “demand-led” budgets are harder to manage such as arrangements for children in care, whether through an agency or in-house. Community care and emergency and temporary housing budgets can also prove challenging.
In the current financial year, children’s care placements are now forecast to come in under budget by £1.2 million. The budget is £26.3 million and the predicted spend is £25.1 million.
A report to councillors said that the number of children with complex needs – and problems with recruiting foster carers – had meant more children staying in residential homes or expensive semi-independent placements.
The council said that it was working to recruit more foster carers, early help and alternative family support.
But the community care budget for 2023-24 is expected to go about £800,000 over its allocated £72.7 million.
Temporary housing is also expected to overspend, with a forecast spend of £5.9 million compared with a budget of £4.8 million.
Just cancel VG3!
Totally agree. Most of the city’s residents and businesses don’t want it anyway
Absolutely, hugely unpopular and will always be a cost loss at its eyewatering £14 million expense.
Totally agree, an overly expensive waste of money that nobody wants (apart from Bricycles etc) which will just increase pollution and bring the city to a standstill! Assuming the budget overruns the £7M already coming from our Council Tax contributions we are looking at a huge saving which could potentially cover a fair chunk of the originally projected £15M overrun, all without sacrificing the quality of other critical services. If the council actually listened to us they would cancel this white elephant project and admit it is not going to deliver value for money to the City and its residents.
Here’s some more savings. Cancel VG3 and get the i360 debt written off as it was mis-lent via the previous Labour administration to a private enterprise based on no viable business plan and fantasy visitor number predictions so the PWLB had no business lending it and should have refused. Scrap 90 percent of the overinflated travel and transport department.Make the new CEO a performance-related pay role. BHCC seem to have boosted this salary for an alarmingly inexperienced candidate who only stayed at Bournemouth Council for 2 years.
The i360 loan was approved by the Greens and the Tories Barry!
Labour voted against the loan.
See minutes of the Policy & Resources Committee of 6th March 2014. Available on the councils website.
The government (of which the PWLB is a part) isn’t going to write off the loan.
The PWLB had the power to refuse, no matter what the various partied councillors voted for or against.
Where was the PWLB’s financial due diligence if they just went along with the request, no questions asked?
You and me wouldn’t be granted a business loan by a bank based on no viable business plan.
Deputy Labour Council Leader Jacob Taylor could probably wangle that promotion he seeks if he got the i360 £36m debt cancelled via an irresponsible lending charge. Though he may need to look outside BHCC for a legal eagle of the magnitude necessary.
But it didn’t.
And the PWLB approved the loan fefore the 6th March 2014 meeting where councillors made the final decision
Please go and read the papers to understand the actual position.
And you’ve totally failed to acknowledge your error on who was responsible for the final approval of the loan.
Even worse dereliction of financial due diligence on the part of the PWLB in its irresponsible lending to our council for a hare-brained private sector scheme with no real capital and no viable business plan.
And Barry still chooses to not correct himself.
To say the Tories approved the i360 loan is misleading. The Tory group did not have a position on the matter and the tory councillors voted individually. The few tories who backed the Green policy gave a small majority.
It would be more money if the two Ex-Labour Councillors were sacked !
Well they can’t be just be sacked.
But just how much money do you think would have been saved if they had?
Bear in mind there would have soon been byelections and 2 new councillors elected. And a bye-election costs money to administer.
Daft argument – democracy costs! Maybe u think that as elections cost money we should not have them
Yes democracy does cost. And didn’t say we shouldn’t have elections.
I see you haven’t addressed my question about how much money you think would have been saved on allowances.
I’m sure he is thinking £32k, but as I’m sure we’re of the same here, that would just go to the next councillors instead. If their investigation does end up with criminal charges, I would like to see the allowance returned to BHCC coffers as part of the charges.
The basic allowance for a back bench councillor is £ 13,827.12 pa
So £ 1.152 per month
From resigning to a new councillor being elected takes roughly 2 months so the council ‘saves’ £2,304.
Definitely Green party Councillors who voted for the public funding of the i360, with the support of Tory Councillors. The huge losses from this result from the decisions made under the Green Administration. Please see the various Freedom Of Information questions/responses about this and the Minutes of the Policy and Resources/ Special Policy and Resources Committee meetings.
Current and past Green and Tory councillors who voted for i360 should be personally surcharged .
They can. Doesn’t matter if they’ve changed jobs or roles. ‘Malfeasance in public office’ is the charge you are looking for.