Brighton & Hove City Council
People Overview & Scrutiny
4.00pm8 October 2025
Hove Town Hall Council Chamber
MINUTES
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Present: Councillor O'Quinn (Chair) Cattell, McLeay, Parrott, Sheard, Winder, Meadows and Hill |
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Other Members present: Maria Cowler (Catholic Church diocesan representative), Sara Fulford (Older People's Council), Joanna Martindale (Community Works Rep), Adam Muirhead (Community Works Rep), Dr Anusree Biswas Sasidharan (Community Works),
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PART ONE
17 Procedural Business
17 a) Apologies received from Cllr Gauge, Cllr Mackey, and Lesley Hurst. Cllr Meadows for Cllr Lyons. Cllr Hill for Cllr Shanks.
18 Minutes
18.1 Cllr Mcleay requested that the written answer to the supplementary public question at the last meeting be included in the minutes of the meeting. This was agreed.
18.2 Cllr Mcleay requested that her ask to include Mr Lee Catt as a witness in the committee’s ongoing Task & Finish Group be included in the minutes of the meeting. This was agreed.
18.3 RESOLVED Subject to 18.1 and 18.2 the draft minutes of the 15th September 2025 People Overview & Scrutiny Committee were approved.
19 Public Involvement
19.1 There was no public involvement.
20 Member Involvement
20.1 There was no member involvement.
21 Chair's Communication
21.1 The Chair gave the following communication:
In this meeting of the People Overview & Scrutiny Committee we have two items
First, building on from our July meeting where we discussed homelessness and rough sleeping, we will look at the draft Homelessness & Rough Sleeping Strategy.
Secondly, we will be looking at the draft Housing Hate Incidents Policy, which will be of particular interest to those members who are on our Task & Finish Group looking into antisocial behaviour in social housing.
Members will have received an invitation to a special meeting of the People Overview & Scrutiny Committee on the 10th of November. At this meeting we will look at libraries following the consultation on the Libraries Sustainability Plan. I know that special meetings can cause difficulty for members to attend as we plan things around meetings, but the team have tried to give as much notice as possible for this meeting, so hopefully as many of you as possible can attend.
22 Homelessness and rough sleeping strategy 2025 to 2030
22.1 Cllr Paul Nann, Cabinet Advisor for Homelessness and Rough Sleeping, and Harry Williams, Director for Housing People Services, presented the report to the committee. The priorities of the strategy are: innovative ways of predicting rough sleeping, improving temporary accommodation, and targeting support for vulnerable people particularly families and children.
22.2 The committee asked questions on topics including: lessons learnt from the previous strategy, the inclusion of the Homeless Bill of Rights in the strategy, co-production and sharing of data, the need for better collection of data on young people, recognising the difference between young people who are homeless with their families and those who are homeless on their own, the desire to have service users represented in the consultation, work with the community and voluntary sector, the correlation between sexual/domestic abuse and homelessness, work with health professionals, awareness in schools, LGBTQ+ people and sudden homelessness, temporary accommodation needs specific for 18-24 year olds, access needs for disabled people who are homeless, prevention of homeless people being forced into sex work, the potential future reduction in the homeless prevention grant, the national homelessness strategy, the use of council powers to purchase smaller student blocks, new legislation that may see landlords selling properties, the difference between the number of application and those the council has a duty for, working with landlords to improve standards, work with 6th forms, support for women suffering economic abuse, support for care leavers, older people’s homelessness.
22.3 RESOLVED:
People Overview & Scrutiny Committee agree to note the findings of the review of homelessness 2025.
People Overview & Scrutiny commented on proposed priorities and commitments set out in the draft homelessness and rough sleeping strategy 2025 to 2030.
23 Housing Hate Incident Policy
23.1 Cllr Gill Williams, Cabinet Member for Housing and New Homes, spoke of the impact of hate incidents on residents, providing appropriate support to them, promoting community cohesion, and empowering communities in standing up to hate.
23.2 Harry Williams, Director of Housing People Services, presented to the committee. He was joined by Justine Harris, Head of Tenancy Services.
23.3 The committee asked questions on topics including: dispersed housing not on estates, the need for neighbourhood teams to engage with councillors acting on behalf of residents, communicating with tenants and the wider community, the need for receipts when issues are reported, the disappointment in the lack of responses to the consultation, that racially minoritised people do not often report hate crimes, the EIA, the consultation response data, support for children, the community security trust, misogyny as a hate crime, mental health, working with other agencies, and if there was a feedback loop on the closure of reports.
23.4 RESOLVED:
People Overview & Scrutiny Committee reviewed and commented on the draft Housing Hate Incident Policy (Appendix 1) ahead of adoption by the Council’s
Housing service.
People Overview & Scrutiny Committee agreed to note the consultation report (Appendix 2).
The meeting concluded at 6.54pm
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Signed
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Chair |
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