Vital services could be given a lifeline with £510,000 budget injection

Proposals to allocate £510,000 to provide a lifeline for 'vital city services' will be debated by councillors at next Thursday's Budget Council.

The meeting, taking place at Hove Town Hall from 4.30pm on 22 February, is where all councillors debate and agree on the final budget for the next financial year.

If agreed, the extra finances from the recent local government settlement will be spent on five key areas including early years childcare, supporting homeless prevention for young people and financial support to people struggling with the cost-of-living.

'Much needed support'

Council leader Bella Sankey said: "Although paltry compared to the millions still missing from local government finance, we're pleased to have this last minute extra money that, if agreed, will allow us to provide a lifeline to a number of vital services.

"We've still had to take a lot of very tough decisions, but we're now able to propose some financial relief to several important organisations and services while delivering a balanced budget and avoiding bankruptcy."

The extra finances come from the final local government financial settlement, giving the council an extra £510,000 to invest in services.

The proposal is to allocate the money to:

• Provide £307,000 for direct financial support for the cost-of-living crisis to help to alleviate the potential ending or reduction of the government's Household Support Fund
• Provide one-off funding of £100,000 for the city's Youth Advice Centre to support homeless prevention work for young people for a further year
• Maintain the early years childcare at Brighton Unemployed Centre and Oasis Creche, requiring £13,000
• Reduce the proposed saving in the Supported Employment service, which helps autistic people, or people with a learning disability, find and retain work, from £0.144m to £0.094m This also releases £0.050m back to Shared Prosperity Funding to be awarded directly to local community organisations and small businesses
• Reduce the proposed saving of Youth-Led Grants by £40,000 and focus these funds on disadvantaged programs

Councillors will also debate a proposed savings package of almost £24 million, allowing the council to set a balanced budget for 2024-25, avoiding bankruptcy.

Government cuts of more than £100m since 2010

Councillor Jacob Taylor, the Deputy Leader and Finance Lead, said: "Next year's budget is the most difficult the council has ever faced and comes on top of 14 years of central government funding cuts that has reduced to council's overall budget by almost 40%, which is £100 million in real terms.

"Despite this, we've worked extremely hard to bring under control a predicted overspend of almost £15 million this financial year and set a balanced budget for next year by proposing a savings package of £24 million alongside other measures to close a £30 million shortfall.

"These proposals will keep public finances on track, prioritise spending on front line essential services, while continuing to protect our most vulnerable residents."

2024-25 budget proposals

The proposals outline how the council will:

• Deliver almost £24 million in savings as part of balancing the budget, to avoid declaring a Section 114 notice and to protect essential services
• Redesign the organisation and streamline management and ways of working to save £2.4 million and improve how we deliver services
• Protect and improve essential everyday city services including street cleaning, improved weeds management, keeping public toilets open - including reopening Pavilion Gardens toilets - and maintaining all council-run nurseries and libraries
• Maintaining a Council Tax Reduction scheme for more than 19,000 households on low incomes as well as care-leavers
• Prioritise spending to deliver the council vision of a 'better Brighton & Hove for all' including new sports and leisure facilities to improve health and wellbeing such as a new pool at Withdean
• Confirm capital investment including everything from bus network improvements to Madeira Terrace, Kingsway to The Sea, tree replacement programmes, playground refurbishments and new swimming and leisure facilities

Find out more

The agenda and Budget papers for the committee can be viewed on our website. More information can be found on our Budget webpages.

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