Brighton And Hove City Council Ends Year With £1 Million Underspend

Tight spending controls enabled Brighton and Hove City Council to end the past financial year in the black by just over £1 million.

The council said last summer that it was on course for a £10 million deficit for the financial year which ended on Monday 31 March.

But the Labour administration imposed a hiring freeze and the council received more money than expected from business rates and benefited from “significant one-off resources”.

As a result, the council’s £205 million general fund budget underspent by almost £1.1 million.

Deputy leader Jacob Taylor said that tough decisions had been required but they had paid off and the underspend would help replenish the council’s “working balance” – or reserves.

Details of the financial outturn are contained in a report to the council’s cabinet which is due to meet at Hove Town Hall on Thursday 26 June.

The report said that the council planned to make savings of £23.6 million last year but £4.7 million was not achieved and that would put pressure on the budget this year.

The budget passed four months ago, in February, for the current financial year included a further £16 million in cuts and savings.

Some demand-led services were overspent such as the budget for temporary housing which was £6.5 million. But a £2.6 million overspend took the total to £9.1 million as the council put up a growing number of homeless people.

The report to the cabinet said that the high and increasing number of people requiring help meant that there was a risk that this service could continue to overspend.

The council had expected that emergency nightly booked housing would be needed for 160 households a night.

But since April last year the council had supported an average of 337 households a night – more than double the number in 2023-24.

The report said:

“The underlying trend is that the number of households using nightly booked accommodation is increasing due to changes in the private rented sector.

“Over the past year, many landlords have exited the market due to cumulative external events beyond the control of the local authority such as increases in landlord taxes, rising mortgage rates and the threat of impending legislation.

“The private rented sector is also the greatest means of preventing homelessness.”

The report said that the council’s city operations directorate underspent by £3.8 million. Income comes from parking charges, planning application fees and venues – all requiring a healthy economy, commercial activity and buoyant visitor numbers.

The improved performance was linked to the economic recovery after the coronavirus pandemic measures, with several areas of activity returning to pre-pandemic levels.

But parking revenues including permit fees fell short by £357,000 and the council made £300,000 less than budgeted from planning applications despite higher fees.

Thirty out of 55 maintained schools in Brighton and Hove, including special schools and nurseries, finished the year over budget.

The council-run schools, including faith schools but not academies, spent almost £211 million last year compared with an income of almost £209 million.

This left the council potentially exposed to some of the overspend of almost £2 million. The outcome was £680,000 worse than budgeted.

The report flagged up issues in several service areas

• More pupils in mainstream schools had more expensive education, health and care plans (EHCP) requiring top-up funding of £336,000

• More children were placed in special schools than expected, pushing the service over budget by £262,000

• The early retirement bill was £178,000 over budget

• The budget for bespoke tuition for children with medical needs was increased by £250,000 but was still overspent by a further £176,000 because of “a continued significant increase in the number of pupils” receiving this support

The cabinet is due to meet at 2pm on Thursday 26 June at Hove Town Hall. The meeting is scheduled to be webcast.