The public can still phone the council and see people face to face, a leading councillor said.
Labour councillor Jacob Allen spoke out after a long-serving former Conservative councillor said that everything now had to be done by email and that this did not work for everyone.
Dawn Barnett said that she had been trying to help a friend with Alzheimer’s disease and that it had shown the shortcomings of the digital focus at Brighton and Hove City Council.
Councillor Allen, the council’s cabinet member for customer services, public realm and local government reorganisation, said: “I was sorry to read about the difficulties Dawn Barnett has experienced while trying to help her friend, who suffers from Alzheimer’s.
“People must be able to access council services and as a Labour administration we take our responsibilities on accessibility and equality seriously.
“However, her claim that ‘you can’t talk to anyone face to face’ and ‘you can’t get through on the phone’ is simply not accurate.
“Between July 2025 and March 2026, the council received 269,143 phone calls, with an average wait of six minutes and 16 seconds.
“We recognise that council tax waiting times have recently been higher than we would like and work is under way to clear outstanding queries and return to our target of answering calls within 10 minutes.
“We have protected face-to-face customer service access under this administration. Our help desks have supported more than 2,500 customers so far this year.
“Hove Town Hall continues to provide face-to-face support for housing issues while general inquiries can be dealt with near by at Hove Library or alternatively at the Jubilee Library following the closure of Barts House.
“This is in the important context that the way residents contact the council has changed drastically in recent years.
“Digital contact has risen from 36 per cent of all contact in 2018 to 76 per cent in 2025 so it is right that we reflect that shift in how we allocate resources from the public purse.
“The council’s own research shows that while 68 per cent of those who receive face-to-face support confirmed they had no barriers to using other avenues of receiving a response from council services, 25 per cent were unable to use digital systems, 3 per cent faced a language barrier and 4 per cent faced a disability barrier.
“My vision is to provide services that are easy to access and designed around the needs of our customers.
“We will be technology-first but not technology-only. Face-to-face support will be focused where it adds the greatest value and can have the most impact.
“That is why the council’s People Overview and Scrutiny Committee has established a task and finish group to review customer access and ensure technology supports better services without excluding those who need additional help.
“I would encourage Mrs Barnett to contact her councillors in Hangleton and Knoll or me directly and we will do everything we can to help resolve her friend’s issue.
“Digital exclusion is a risk every modern organisation has to address and we do not want anyone to be prevented from accessing any of the hundreds of services Brighton and Hove City Council provides.
“Residents expect a modern council which makes the most of technology but which is there on the phone and face to face for people who need that support. That is the service we are providing to our city.”
In Hove Library. For lost and renewed bus passes. You are having a laugh, Cllr Allen?
As for phoning the council, you do realise council phone lines close at 1pm each day, don’t you Cllr Allen? Why is that? That is not customer service. Or friendly to those with health needs whose medication may make it difficult for them to function in the mornings. Many people on anti-depressants in particular have this problem yet you are legally-obliged to act under the Equalities Act to provide inclusive services and consider all DEI and neuro-diverse conditions in addition to the needs of older residents.
Why were all council staff not required to return to the office after lockdown to resume proper customer service provision and in line with then-Prime Minister Johnson’s requirement for a return to the office for all civil servants? It seems like lockdown was used as a dirty great excuse to cheat the public out of many face-to-face services in order to sell off council buildings etc. Though how they assumed no one would notice or mind just shows how out of touch they are with the electorate. And how callous.
Could you summarise please?
She’s trying to insinuate council workers are lazy and go home at 1pm by strawmanning a fallacious argument, despite that being completely untrue.
As someone living with an acquired brain injury and autism, with cognitive, behavioural and emotional difficulties that can make functioning in the world challenging, I think there is another side to this discussion about digital services.
Personally, dealing with things such as bills, council tax and everyday administration has actually become easier for me with the help of AI. It can explain things, break tasks down, prompt me through the steps and help me communicate what I am trying to say. I’ve found myself enjoying tasks that previously could have been overwhelming.
So, in that respect, I haven’t needed Brighton & Hove City Council to provide somebody to sit with me and complete these tasks. AI has helped give me greater independence.
For me, the bigger issue isn’t simply whether the council offers telephone, face-to-face or digital services. It is whether people with neurocognitive, behavioural, communication and emotional difficulties are properly understood and treated equally when they interact with those services.
Disability doesn’t always present as somebody quietly saying, “I need help.”
Brain injury, autism and other neurological conditions can affect executive functioning, communication, impulse control, emotional regulation and how somebody responds when overwhelmed. Those difficulties can themselves become barriers when dealing with organisations and people.
In my own experience, AI can sometimes accommodate that diversity better than human interaction. It doesn’t become offended because I communicate differently, doesn’t judge my tone in the same way, and can repeatedly rephrase or explain something without turning the interaction into a confrontation.
That is why I don’t think the answer is simply “more face-to-face services”. For some disabled people, one-to-one human interaction can itself be the difficult part.
I would rather see councils embrace properly designed, accessible AI-assisted services while ensuring that people who need human assistance can still obtain it.
Technology-first doesn’t necessarily have to mean exclusion. Done properly, technology can actually be an accessibility tool that gives disabled people greater independence.
But that has to go alongside recognising and accommodating neurocognitive, behavioural and emotional disabilities rather than discriminating against people because of the very symptoms and difficulties their disabilities can cause.
Brighton and Hove council seem to rely on a policy of putting you off so you give up.
It’s not April Fool’s Day is it? Has Councillor Jacob Allen ever tried to contact departments like Council Tax or housing? Many phone lines are onlu 9:30-1:30pm Mon-Fri. No wonder call waits are higher on these lines. Many people who are digitally excluded rely on phone contact, so the council’s restricted contact times have a disprortionate impact on the most vulnerable residents.
And if Cllr Allen has ever tried to council form in an accessible form, the council link to a contact form for people to complete. It’s madness, if someone needs an accessible form because they cannot complete an online version, directing people to a contact form to complete with no reference to other ways to request the accessible form (phone / postal address) is bonkers. It’s as if they don’t want people to contact them and just make it harder.
As it was mentioned in the previous article, it’s demonstrates another reason why community spaces are so important, because they can provide that additional accessibility and support as advocates.
You can’t buy parking permits for visitors face to face like you could once. That discriminates against people who are not digitally competent… Reopen the multiservice counter to HTH