Directorate	2022/23 Gross Budget	2022/23 Net Budget	2022/23 FTEs	2023/24 Savings Proposed	2023/24 Proposed FTE Deleted
	£000	£000	FTE	£000	FTE
Director of Families Children & Learning	308	89	5.0	0	0.0
Health SEN & Disability	57,220	49,394	270.7	1,590	1.1
Education & Skills	15,905	9,410	240.8	255	16.8
Children’s Safeguarding & Care	46,655	42,280	308.8	1,302	0.0
Quality Assurance & Performance	1,584	1,477	28.9	0	0.0
Total Families Children & Learning	121,672	102,650	854.2	3,147	17.9
Adult Social Care	65,983	45,695	437.9	1,937	0.0
S75 SPFT	31,832	22,663	56.8	987	0.0
Integrated Commissioning	6,558	3,228	49.6	173	0.0
Life Events ^1	2,867	-105	40.7	0	0.0
Public Health	23,574	122	52.1	0	0.0
Total Health & Adult Social Care	130,814	71,603	637.1	3,097	0.0
Transport	40,617	-6,809	226.3	1,833	0.0
City Environmental Management	22,573	20,294	558.9	697	0.0
Waste PFI	15,810	15,090	0.0	80	0.0
City Development & Regeneration	6,277	3,132	102.2	228	2.0
Culture Tourism & Sport	11,145	4,153	87.3	323	1.0
Property	11,648	1,209	104.1	403	1.0
Total Economy Environment & Culture	108,070	37,069	1,078.8	3,564	4.0
Housing General Fund	39,943	11,139	180.4	1,568	0.0
Libraries	5,229	4,795	60.0	106	3.2
Communities Equalities & 3rd Sector	3,484	2,989	12.8	0	0.0
Safer Communities	4,500	3,062	73.1	86	4.0
Total Housing, Neighbourhoods & Communities	53,156	21,985	326.3	1,760	7.2
Policy & Communications	1,465	1,343	29.0	74	1.5
Legal & Democratic Services	3,780	3,328	64.6	150	1.5
Elections and Land Charges ^1	650	24	11.7	22	0.0
Customer Modernisation & Data	1,370	1,370	39.6	76	1.0
Finance (Mobo)	1,924	1,678	42.3	67	0.0
Procurement (Mobo)	-37	-37	0.0	0	0.0
HR & Organisational Development (Mobo)	3,567	3,481	72.5	214	3.0
IT&D (Mobo)	8,748	8,571	3.4	350	0.0
Welfare Revenues & Business Support	9,683	7,011	219.7	75	2.5
Contribution to Orbis	1,556	1,556	129.6	0	0.0
Total Governance, People & Resources	32,706	28,325	612.3	1,028	9.5
Total Service Budgets	446,418	261,632	3,508.7	12,596	38.6

Budget Strategy 2023-24

Families, Children and Learning

Service Context

The Families, Children and Learning Directorate brings together different services for children and young people as well as services for adults with learning disabilities (LD) and support for skills and employment. Much of the education and special educational needs provision is funded through the ring-fenced Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG). This budget strategy is focused on General Fund spend.

The main area of General Fund spend relates to the placement costs for children and young people in care and adults with LD. Spend on children’s placements is under pressure given the national placement sufficiency issues, which have been exacerbated by the pandemic.  This has resulted in children being placed in provision on the basis of availability rather than need. Such placements tend to be more expensive residential provision.  There are also significant pressures on the community care budget for adults with learning disabilities. These pressures are expected to last some time, leading to ongoing financial pressures as high-cost placements continue to be needed.

Nationally the number of children with child protection plans and children being brought into care has reduced slightly over the past 12 months. Over recent years the numbers in Brighton & Hove had been reducing in the context of national rises. During 2022 there has been an increase in the number of children subject to a child protection plan locally.  However, the number of children in care has started to level off. This rise is primarily due the impact of lockdowns on family relationships, particularly in those families with adolescents.   There has also been an increase in the number of children with disabilities and complex needs requiring special residential provision.  Further pressure on these budgets is anticipated as the impact of Covid-19 manifests itself over the coming years. The cost-of-living crisis is also likely to cause an increase in demand for statutory social work services given the casual link between poverty and child abuse and neglect.

In addition, both locally and nationally there has been an increase in the number of adolescents requiring intensive support, including high-cost residential placements. In part, this is related to the greater focus on meeting the needs of young people who are vulnerable to exploitation.  There is also a significant national issue regarding foster placement sufficiency, resulting from the significant rise in the number of children in care.  The impact locally is that when placements are required, the lack of options means that placements can sometimes be made on the basis of availability rather than need. 

Our vision is for a Directorate that is ambitious and works closely with partners. We want all of the city’s families and children to be happy, healthy and safe, fulfilling their potential. Over the last few years, services have been redesigned in order to improve efficiency and reduce costs and this will continue in future years. Inevitably, this requires difficult decisions in balancing untargeted, non-statutory support with preventative, statutory and safeguarding provision.

There are three key branches in the directorate together with a performance and safeguarding service that ensures that we meet our duties and provides quality assurance. The key branches are as follows:

Education and Skills £9.410m

This service area includes:

· Early Years, Youth and Family Support (including Children’s Centres);

· School Organisation and Access to Education and Hidden Children;

· Education Standards and Achievement;

· Skills and Employment;

· Virtual School for children in care and those previously in care;

· Stronger Families (Troubled Families programme);

· Ethnic Minority Achievement Service and Traveller Education Service.

Health SEN and Disability Services £49.394m

This service area includes:

· Inclusion Support Services for Schools including Education Psychology services and Schools Wellbeing services;

· Special Educational Needs services;

· Social work and early help support for children with a disability;

· Residential, short break and respite provision for children with a disability;

· Assessment, social work, behaviour support and health services for adults with learning disabilities;

· Council residential and day activities services for adults with learning disabilities.

Children’s Safeguarding and Care £42.280m

This service area includes:

· Fostering, family placement and permanence services;

· Children in need and child protection social work services;

· Children in care and leaving care services;

· Unaccompanied asylum seeking children services;

· Adolescence and youth offending services;

· Front Door for Families which includes MASH (Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub);

· Multi-disciplinary Partners in Change Hub including Early Parenting Assessment Programme;

· Contact and Family Group Conference Services.

Users of Families, Children and Learning Services

The directorate provides a range of different services from universal to those targeted at small groups of people with very high levels of need and/or where we are required to fulfil a statutory duty. Some of the key groups of users we interact with are as follows*:

· 31,654 children attend city’s school (January 2022)

· 16,944 contacts were received by the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub/Front Door for Families during the year ending September 2022, of these 3,152 were safeguarding concerns that required follow up work;

· 7,790 Parents/Carers applied for school places (2021-22 academic year);  

· 6,061 children receive SEND support in maintained schools (including 1,352 children who have an Education Health & Care plan) (January 2022);

· 6,834 children are eligible for free school meals (January 2022);

· 663 individual unique children attending children’s centre nurseries between April 2021 and March 2022.

· For children’s centres, a total of 1093 case work interventions were started by BHCC staff in 2021/22, for 1,024 children aged five and under (compared to 2020/21: 1,392 started, 856 children).

· 1,013 families supported by Early Help teams April 2021 to March 2022

· 1,545 children aged under 18 are supported by social work to be safe September 2022

· 297 children are on a child protection plan (as at 30^th September 2022);

· We act as Corporate Parent to 385 children in care and 392 care leavers aged between the ages of 18 and 25 (September 2022)

· We help support 42 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (September 2022);

· 486 pupils in Brighton and Hove are educated at home (30^th June 2022);

· There are 192 in–house Foster Care Households as at 30^th September 2022 including 18 Supported Lodging Households;     

· 6 children have been adopted in the last 12 months;

· 743 Adults with a Learning Disability aged 18-64 in receipt of Adult Social Care as at 30^th September 2022.

*       Please note these figures are a mixture of snapshots in time or usage over a set period and are shared with the intention of being illustrative.

Budget Strategy

Direction of Travel

We are committed to working as one Families, Children and Learning Directorate to deliver safe and whole family services, with a focus on improving outcomes and delivering inclusive and accessible provision.  The voice of children, young people, their families, and those of adults with learning disabilities is at the heart of everything we do.  Our staff are our greatest resource, and we are committed to supporting them and their professional development.

To achieve this, we:

• Promote, support and deliver high quality educational and skills provision;

• Promote whole family working with a focus on reviewing Early Help provision and developing Family Hubs to improve outcomes for disadvantaged and vulnerable people;

• Deliver a safe and effective social work service which responds to changing needs of children and their families;

• Work to support adults with learning disabilities to live independent and positive lives;

• Work with young people and other partners to deliver high quality youth services across the city;

• Co-produce and continue to improve SEND provision and services in the city;

• Manage effective budget arrangements across the directorate;

• Improve the diversity of the workforce.

The voice of children, young people, their families and those of adults with learning disabilities is at the heart of everything we do. We commission and deliver services with partners to ensure children, young people and adults with learning disabilities live happy, safe and positive lives, achieving their potential. This is achieved within the context of high demand and reducing resources.

Areas of Focus for Savings

The Directorate has looked at all the services it delivers, identifying those that are essential. Essential services include those that are statutory, those where a business case demonstrates the service is the best use of resources and those that generate income for the Council.  This has led to proposals to make savings in Council Nurseries, Youth, Employment and Skills and Placements.

The Directorate is exploring options for savings on Adults with Learning Disabilities through a number of targeted strategies including:

• Continuation of the 'Move On' project supporting adults with LD to move on from high cost placements into new living arrangements which promote independence.

• Appropriate joint funding arrangements to be pursued i.e. Continuing Health Care funding.

• Improved transition arrangements for young people. The Specialist Community Disability Service 14-25 pod will seek to provide a greater focus on this high cost area.

• Review of existing block contracts for outsourced services, to address any over provision and more effective utilisation of voids.

• Expansion of Shared Lives capacity.

The project to increase the number of foster placements and reduce reliance on more expensive residential provider provision is ongoing. This will enable further savings in Children’s Agency Placements:

• Ensuring value for money is obtained when using external providers; this is supported by the children's services framework contract arrangements and preferred provider guidelines.

• Relationship based social work practice and the specialist adolescence service continues to contribute to diverting children from the care system by meeting need and managing risk within the home. 

• For those already in care, there is a focus on stepping down to in house and/or less expensive placements, in line with assessed need, and on returning children to their families where this is safe to do so.

Elsewhere, a review of all lines of the FCL budget took place to identify other savings and efficiencies.

Investment in Services

The following investment in services is planned to meet demographic and other cost increase to maintain investment in priority services and meet statutory requirements:

· Adults with Learning Disabilities £5.602m;

· Support for Children in Care £3.100m;

· Home to School Transport £1.337m;

· Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children £0.500m;

· Support for Children with Disabilities £0.365m;

· Other £0.170m.

Supporting the Council’s Priorities

The budget position is challenging. In undertaking the review of budgets to identify savings, those services supporting the most vulnerable in the City have been protected and it has been ensured that all statutory obligations can be met. Systems for managing demand led services within FCL are well established and robust. A review of Early Help services is in process to ensure that preventive work is effective at reducing the need for high-cost interventions at a later stage.

Horizon scanning, modernisation and planning for future needs is a priority. Work is underway to explore in-house options for children with a disability; this is an area where we currently experience high unit costs.

Below is a summary of work we have planned over the next three years that supports council’s priorities as set out in the City’s Council Plan and the administration’s priorities.

A city to call home

· Work to ensure care leavers and adults with a Learning Disability have suitable accommodation.

A City Working for All

· Lead on apprenticeship work.

· Support the education and skills city plan.

· Develop plans for youth employment hub with Department for Work & Pensions.

· Youth and disability employability support.

A Stronger City

· Coordinate development of anti-racist schools’ strategy.

· Support to schools in delivering equalities curriculums.

· Continued development of anti-racist social work practice.

· Implementing a coproduced all ages SEND Strategy, including improving access for disabled people.

· Continuing our investment in and partnership working with the local voluntary and community sector.

A growing and learning city

· Supporting high quality early years and education provision in the city, supporting ongoing improvement.

· Coordinating the city’s Education Partnership.

· Retaining a focus on disadvantaged families, supporting the development of a multi-agency city wide strategic approach.

· Delivering and supporting high quality youth support in the city and further developing youth engagement opportunities.

· Supporting lifelong learning and a positive transition into adulthood for all.

A Sustainable City

· Ensuring sustainability is a priority factor in all delivery and contract management.

· Further exploring environmental education.

A Heathy and Caring City

· Delivering a strongly regarded social work service for children and adults with disabilities.

· Delivering on the prevention focussed Starting Well priority in the city’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy.

Service Area					Savings Detail
Section	Service Area	Gross budget 2022/23	Net budget 2022/23	FTEs 2022/23	Brief Summary of Budget Proposal/Strategy and Risks	EIA No.	Savings Proposals   2023/24
		£'000	£'000	FTE			£'000
FAMILIES, CHILDREN & LEARNING
DIRECTOR OF FAMILIES, CHILDREN & LEARNING
Director of Families, Children and Learning	Salary and directorate support costs for the Director and support staff	308	89	5.0	No proposed saving - DCS role is a statutory requirement
Director of Families, Children & Learning Total		308	89	5.0			0
HEALTH, SEN & DISABILITY SERVICES
Services for children with disabilities	Residential, respite and short breaks.	2,223	1,671	31.6	No proposed savings - statutory requirement and budget under pressure due to demand
Services for children with disabilities and Adults with learning disabilities	Management, assessment, operations and admin	2,663	2,510	46.2	Delete vacant hours within Specialist Community Disability Service admin team establishment  Risk - minimal		20
Services for children with disabilities	Direct payments	928	509	0.0	No proposed savings - statutory requirement and budget under pressure
Services for children with disabilities	Family support services	254	204	3.7	Non-Statutory function including Cherish and Outreach. Supports vulnerable children and families (SEND) and is linked to provision of extended day services.		0
Services for children with disabilities	Contracted services, adaptations, management	605	499	0.0	No proposed savings -  budget under pressure due to demand
Agency placements - disabled children	Independent and non maintained children's homes, special schools and boarding school placements	3,288	2,901	0.0	Limit the number of expensive external residential placements through commissioning and brokerage work (£0.250m). Seek appropriate joint funding arrangements with third parties such as Health for high cost young people under the age of 18 (£0.200m).  Risk: demand led budget that has to respond to presenting needs, including high cost placements	1 and 2	450
Special educational needs	Special Educational Needs	1,388	382	19.0	Statutory service with budget under pressure due to demand
Inclusion Support Service	Inclusion Support Service. Including Educational Psychology Service and Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)	1,667	535	30.8	No proposed savings - includes some statutory services (Ed Psychologists) and support for C&YP around Early Help and Well-being
Learning Disabilities - Adults Community Care placements	Learning Disabilities	38,031	34,785	0.0	Significant pressure funding to this budget in 2023/24 (mainly for transitions and fee uplift of 5%) will fund the service, enabling it to focus on implementing targeted strategies to reduce placement costs as in previous years, including: - Continuation of The 'Move On' project supporting adults with LD to move on from high cost placements into new living arrangements which promote independence (£0.500m) - Appropriate joint funding arrangements to be pursued with third parties i.e. Continuing Health Care funding (£0.250m) - Improved transition planning arrangements for young people. The social work pod will seek to provide a greater focus on this high cost area (£0.200m) - Review of existing block contracts for outsourced services,  to address any over provision and more effective utilisation of voids (£0.050m). - Expansion of Shared Lives capacity to reduce existing higher cost placements (£0.100m) Risk: demand led budget that has to respond to presenting needs, including high cost placements	3	1,100
Learning Disabilities - Community Support (Adults)	Community Support Service	209	188	4.6	Vacant hours in existing staffing budget. Saving can be delivered with no change to establishment. Risk minimal		20
Learning Disabilities - Day Services (Adults)	Learning Disabilities Day Options	779	754	21.9	No proposed savings - support for adults with LD
Learning Disabilities - Residential (Adults)	In house Residential and Supported Living	4,207	3,560	91.9	No proposed savings - statutory requirement and budget will grow as 'Move-on' strategies are implemented
Learning Disabilities - Residential (Adults)	Respite Services	978	896	21.0	No proposed savings - statutory requirement and contributes to the prevention of additional placements by supporting families
Learning Disabilities - Shared Lives (Adults)	Shared Lives Service	Budget included above	Budget included above
Learning Disabilities - Supported Accommodation (Adults)	Registered Supported Living (8 Services)	Budget included above	Budget included above
Health, SEN & Disability Services Total		57,220	49,394	270.7			1,590
EDUCATION & SKILLS
Schools PFI	This budget accounts for credit payments from the DfE to cover the 25 year PFI program for 3 secondary schools.	2,410	0	0.0	No proposal to make a saving. The DfE credits are required to meet the final costs of the PFI programme at the end of the 25 year programme and there is already a forecast cost pressure upon its realisation.
Standards & Achievement	Funds core LA school improvement team who support and challenge schools in line with statutory duties outlined in the Education Act 2005,2006 and Schools Causing Concern guidance 2021.  It also leads disadvantaged education strategy and educational partnership.	541	320	4.5	Continued funding essential for school improvement, monitoring and intervention. Cutting core council funding would mean: 1. Poorer educational outcomes for all, particularly disadvantaged and SEN; 2. Higher number of failing schools and increased academisation. 3. Would lose £0.221m de-delegated monitoring funding (previously monitoring grant) from schools. 4. No work is completed re-establishing and maintaining school partnerships.
School Organisation and Admissions.	This includes our staffing costs to support the delivery of our statutory school organisation responsibilities in relation to pupil place planning, school admissions, free school meal eligibility checking and duties placed upon the council in relation to school attendance, exclusions, alternative provision and the responsibility to ensure pupils not in school receive a suitable education.	206	154	4.0	No proposal for saving given need to ensure effective support to schools and fulfil statutory responsibilities. Funding supports efficient co-ordination and liaison between central council functions and schools (e.g. Emergency Planning, Health & Safety, Finance, Property & Design, HR) Reduction would put additional pressures on those corporate services and could result in schools considering alternative options such as academisation.
Environmental education	This funding supports the delivery of the Brighton and Hove Environmental Education service,	40	40	0.0	No saving proposed for this non-statutory provision.
Anti-racist strategy	Council core funding for LA Adviser and seconded staff from schools to implement an agreed schools anti racism strategy for the City.  Work includes direct work with the city's school providing training, challenge and support on anti-racism.	102	102	0.0	Continue funding.  Supports council's commitment to becoming anti-racist. Children & Young People Committee agreed 5 year funding to enable anti-racist school strategy to become embedded.  Risk; Withdrawal of funding would result in racism in schools not being effectively addressed:  significant reputational risk for council of withdrawal.
Home to School Transport	Transport arrangements for eligible children aged between 5 and 16 as per LA’s statutory duties. Discretionary transport arrangements for young people aged between 16-18 from families experiencing low income and for young people with SEND.	4,061	3,883	7.8	No savings possible. Statutory service under considerable cost and demand pressures.
The Virtual School.	This is core councils funding that contributes to the statutory position of Head of Virtual School.  All remaining funding for the position and Virtual School comes from designated schools grant. The Virtual School deliver statutory service to Children in Care and Previously Looked After.	84	25	0.0	Statutory duty and no changes to funding are currently possible.  Risk if not funded: Failure to deliver priority statutory services to Children in Care; Children Previously Looked After and Children with a Social Worker.  This would mean poorer outcomes for vulnerable children.  Significant Risk with Ofsted; Safeguarding of Children and Outcomes for children.  Role also oversees services to support safeguarding of children in schools - therefore wider safeguarding risk for children.
Other Educational support	This includes Governor support, Redundancy and Asset management and Education & Traded services support	133	(43)	5.6	No savings can be made as this is a traded service with schools that recovers costs (including overheads).
Youth Services	Commissioned community and voluntary sector youth services provide a range of traditional youth services across the city, and include equality groups	449	194	0.0	Non-statutory, discretionary service.
Youth Services	The Youth Led Grants Programme provides additionally funded youth activities/projects delivered by the community and voluntary sector across the city.	80	80	0.0	Non-statutory, discretionary service.
Youth Services	Internal council services – Youth Participation Team provide a range of services for children and young people who are/have been in care or receiving social work support; this includes youth advocacy, Children in Care Council. The service also provides wider participation activities, e.g. Youth Council, Youth Wise.	413	394	9.9	Non-statutory, discretionary service.
Youth Services	The service also provides an accredited Youth Arts Programme	48	48	0.0	Cease the Youth Arts programme - non-statutory, discretionary service. Risks: Reduced opportunities for children to achieve a nationally accredited award and reintegrate them back into education, training or employment.	4	48
Independent Visitors	The Youth Participation Team provide an Independent Visitors (IV) scheme. Two IV coordinators (1.4 fte) recruit, assess, train, match and support IV's, who befriend and support children and young people who are in the care of the local authority.	73	73	2.4	Statutory service - no savings proposed
Early Help - Integrated Team for Families and Parenting Service (including the Troubled Families Grant)	The ITF & Parenting Service work intensively with families with children of all ages, who have multiple, complex needs that generally fall just below the social work threshold. The Parenting Service delivers evidence based group and 1:1 targeted parenting interventions. Much of this service is funded by the Supporting Families Grant	1,596	662	26.2	The Supporting Families national evaluation shows that complex families have disproportionately high levels of health problems compared to the general population. Family Coaches work with families with a range of physical and mental health needs which they were managing poorly and affecting the whole family. These families are in need of whole family support and robust coordination of services. Improved mental and physical health is a Supporting Families outcome measure and progress towards this target will be monitored closely.
Early Years - Children's Centres	City-wide service providing family support, early learning and support for parents to train and work to improve outcomes for children under 5.  These teams will become part of family hub networks moving forward changing existing CC's to family hubs delivering the Early Help services. Health visiting and midwifery services also deliver from CCs.  Integrated Team for Families and Parenting Service based in Tarner and Moulsecoomb.   Seven designated Children’s Centre’s are: Roundabout, Moulsecoomb, Tarner, Hollingdean, Hangleton, Conway Court (SCFT building), Portslade.  Note: statutory duty to secure sufficient children's centres and to consult before making significant changes or closing children’s centres.	1,528	1,430	41.8	Proposal 1: £0.015m saving on Children’s Centre Monitoring database being decommissioned.  Proposal 2: Stop funding external SLA's totalling £0.036m: Brighton unemployed centre £0.011m, Brighton Oasis creche support £0.002m, Amaze £0.001m, Early Childhood project providing toy library and stay and play £0.022m. Risks: Impact on service delivery by external partners, review needed of SLA's with Legal. Note: Children's Centres are in scope for family hub transformation and will be reprofiled against the family hub structure.	5	51
Pavilion Pre-School	Pavilion Pre-School Portslade, 24 places, term time, school day.  Total budget including DSG is 103k.	11	2	2.1	Pavilion pre school is moving to Mile Oak school in January 2023		2
Brightstart Nursery	Bright Start, 50 places full day/year.  Total budget including Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) is 446k.  Council subsidy 21%. Total number of children excluding babies Summer 22 - 47 including 12 funded 2 year olds, 9 Early Years Pupil Premium and 5 ASF Autumn term numbers 62 (10 under 2's, 19 2's and 33 3-4's). Located in the 40% most disadvantaged areas of the city. Average percentage of children in receipt of EYPP 27.4%. Average percentage of children living in the 0 to 20% most disadvantaged areas of the city 47.3%. Average number of disadvantaged two year olds attending who are in receipt of EYFE 10.	326	104	17.1	The existing building requires significant building works as identified in the conditions report. To ensure the safety of the building and ensure it is suitable for Early Years provision there will be high repair costs which would need budgeting. It is proposed for closure or alternative model out of Tarner CC to be considered. There is a significant amount of alternative provision within two miles of Bright Start with 42 PVI's within 2 miles and 5 maintained nurseries/nursery classes, most of which is open all year round and takes children from birth however Bright Start is also a provider of EYFE for eligible two year olds.                                                                           Risks: - Management of staffing redundancies. - Equalities impact for women and young children. - Loss of DSG early years funding for the city if children cannot attend childcare places elsewhere.	6	104
Jump Start Nursery	Jump Start, Moulsecoomb, 34 places, full day/year.  Total budget including DSG is 385k.  Provides free meals for DSG funded children.   Council subsidy is 52%.  Total number of children summer 22 - 37.   including 12 funded 2 year olds, 20 Early Years Pupil Premium and 5 ASF. Some children could not be offered places because unable to recruit staff. Autumn term total 27 (13 2's and 14 3-4's) Located in the 30% most disadvantaged areas of the city. Average percentage of children in receipt of EYPP 66.8%. Average percentage of children living in the 0 to 20% most disadvantaged areas of the city 80.8%. Average number of disadvantaged two year olds attending who are in receipt of EYFE 14.	254	209	10.4	This is a non-statutory, discretionary service
Acorn Nursery	Acorn Nursery, North Portslade.  60 places full day/year.   Total budget is 543k including DSG.  Council subsidy is 21%.  Total number of children summer 22 -49 including.  10 funded 2 year olds, 4 Early Years Pupil Premium and 5 ASF   children Autumn term to be confirmed. Located in the 30% most disadvantaged areas of the city. Average percentage of children in receipt of early years pupil premium (EYPP) 18.5%. Average percentage of children living in the 0 to 20% most disadvantaged areas of the city 34.9%. Average number of disadvantaged two year olds attending who are in receipt of EYFE 10.	408	127	23.2	This is a non-statutory, discretionary service
Cherry Tree Nursery	Cherry Tree Nursery, Hollingdean, 50 places full day/year.  Total budget is 522k including DSG.  Council subsidy is 24%. Total number of children summer 22 - 48 including 8 funded 2 year olds, 21 Early Years Pupil Premium and 5 ASF children. Some children could not be offered places because unable to recruit staff. Autumn term total 63 (22 under 2's, 13 2's and 28 3-4's). Located in the 40% most disadvantaged areas of the city. Average percentage of children in receipt of EYPP 49.1%. Average percentage of children living in the 0 to 20% most disadvantaged areas of the city 44.2%. Average number of disadvantaged two year olds attending who are in receipt of EYFE 16.	355	136	17.3	This is a non-statutory, discretionary service
Roundabout Nursery	Roundabout Nursery, Whitehawk. 86 places full day/year.  Total budget is 862k including DSG.  Council subsidy is 20%.  Total number of children 115 summer 22 including 32 funded 2 year olds and 40 Early Years Pupil Premium and 10. Autumn term total 110 (12 under 2's, 45 2's and 53 3-4's). Located in the 10% most disadvantaged areas of the city. Average percentage of children in receipt of EYPP 50.2%. Average percentage of children living in the 0 to 20% most disadvantaged areas of the city 74.2%. Average number of disadvantaged two year olds attending who are in receipt of EYFE 34.	417	179	24.4	This is a non-statutory, discretionary service
Early Years - Childcare Management	Management of the early years service including council nurseries.  Support for private and voluntary nurseries, childminders, out of school childcare, childcare workforce training, and management and administration of free early years entitlement for 2/3/4 year olds. Oversight of the Holiday Food and Activity Programme.  Statutory duty to secure sufficient childcare places and  information, advice and training to childcare providers and to complete an annual childcare sufficiency assessment.  Early years providers pay for most training courses.	331	290	4.5	No saving opportunity identified. Provides key support to Early Years settings.
Skills & Employment	Adult Education Budget & Community Learning	570	0	5.7	This is funded directly by the Education Skills Funding Agency on an annual non procured grant.
Skills & Employment	Skills and Employment Core Team	143	143	2.6	No savings are proposed.  This team provides leadership on the employment and skills agenda. The local authority has a statutory duty to secure sufficient suitable education and training provision. This includes: • influencing and shaping the provision on offer and helping to develop and improve the education and training market; • supporting the improvement of the quality of the education and training of young people aged 16-19 • supporting employer needs, economic growth and community development working with Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) Local Skills Improvement Plans LSIP as appropriate; and • work in partnership with schools to ensure schools know what support services are available. Local authorities should have strategic plans for education and for partnership arrangements post 16 provision providing challenge and support, this is especially important in light of the Post 16 and Skills Act 2022 which introduces a number of reforms to Post 16 and Skills. It would be challenging to ensure provision effectively supports our city’s disadvantaged without these posts in place and deliver work to support the corporate plan, a growing learning city and a city working for all priorities and CESP.
Skills & Employment	Apprenticeship and Pre-employment Team	305	305	5.7	£0.050m savings are proposed which would end paid placement opportunities as part of the pre-employment programme. Paid placements in the council are for disabled people of all ages with a particular focus on Looked After Children, NEETs who have a disability or EHCP under the age of 25. Risk: This work currently supports the workforce diversity agenda and the wider Fair and Inclusive strategy. The remaining budget supports apprenticeship and pre-employment programmes. Unspent levy is returned to the government on a 'use it or lose it basis' so without this budget further levy would return. Invest to save. The staff support £2m of Levy - over 160 apprentices (length 13months -5 years) As a levy employer we have to ensure quality and adhere to technical funding and apprenticeship regulations. Failure to comply would put the council at financial and reputational risk.   Managed transfer of funds to SME’s currently at c£0.500m	7	50
Skills & Employment	Employability Service (Youth Employment, Youth Employment Hub and Supported Employment)	1,016	603	17.6	No saving opportunity identified.
Print & Sign	Print & Sign Unit	5	(50)	8.0	Net income generator.
Education & Skills Total		15,905	9,410	240.8			255
CHILDREN'S SAFEGUARDING & CARE
Fostering & Adoption	Payments to in-house carers for fostered and adopted children.	9,308	9,301	0.0	No savings proposed - statutory duty. Aim is to ultimately increase in-house carers to reduce Independent Foster Agency costs.
Fostering & Adoption	Staffing teams assessing and supporting foster carers and potential adopters. Allowances paid to Adopters	4,096	4,040	59.9	No savings proposed - statutory duty.
Social Work	Social work staffing teams.	9,559	9,536	174.4	No savings proposed - statutory duty. Social Work has been remodelled and caseloads are at appropriate levels.
Social Work	Expenditure incurred under section 17 & 18 of the 1989 Children Act.	393	393	0.0	No savings proposed - statutory duty. Contributes to the council's response to welfare reforms.
Social Work	Legal costs relating to assessment and court fees.	863	863	0.0	No savings proposed - statutory duty and achieves significant cost avoidance.
Contact Service	Family contact for children in care (Chic) and children in need (CIN)	715	715	5.7	No savings proposed - statutory duty.
Care Leavers	Services for 18-24 year olds leaving care, including staying put and ex-asylum seekers.	3,860	2,252	9.0	No savings proposed - statutory duty.
Agency Placements	Residential, fostering and secure placements for looked after children provided by external agencies	13,457	11,403	4.0	Project to increase the number of in house foster placements and reduce reliance on more expensive independent provider provision is ongoing.  Provision of high quality, value for money provision though contracted services with external providers supported by the children's services framework contract arrangements and preferred provider guidelines. In addition to the savings proposed, there is pressure funding for 2023/24 to cover future anticipated increased costs for existing clients. Relationship based social work practice and the specialist adolescence service is contributing to diverting children from the care system, and for those already in care, a stepping down to in house and/or less expensive placements. Close scrutiny of placement costs, together with an increase in in-house foster carers is contributing to a reduction in unit costs.                         Delivery Risk: This is a high cost service where the failure of effective prevention and demand management would not only impact on the achievement of cost reduction but is likely to be of corporate financial significance to the council's challenging medium term financial position. The proposals set out here assume that other pressures on this budget will be met across the overall budget. A small number of adolescents with very significant needs continue to provide pressure on these budgets combined with a national shortage of placements. Impact on Outcomes: Improved practice model prevents children needing care and contributes to improved outcomes for young people. Demand management has implications for managing risk effectively to meet safeguarding requirements and statutory duties.	8	1,282
Adolescent Service	Support and supervision to young people at risk of exploitation, some of whom are at risk of becoming involved in the Criminal Justice System and preventative work for children and young people at risk of becoming involved in offending.	2,513	1,986	38.9	Modest efficiency savings are possible.		20
Family Support Services	Family group conferences and intensive intervention initiatives	430	398	4.7	No savings proposed - supports statutory duty and provides a key preventative service achieving cost avoidance.
Partners in Change Hub & specialist assessments	Lead practitioners and adult workers supporting social workers to manage risk effectively within families; specialist assessments to support social work decision making	1,461	1,393	12.2	No savings proposed - supports statutory duty and provides a key preventative service achieving cost avoidance.
Children's Safeguarding & Care Total		46,655	42,280	308.8			1,302
QUALITY ASSURANCE & PERFORMANCE
Children's Safeguarding & Quality Assurance (QA)	Specific child protection services, the Brighton & Hove Safeguarding Children's Partnership (BHSCP) and independent reviewing officers. Note: Income of £45k from services to schools has been netted off within the gross budget.	1,584	1,477	28.9	No savings proposed.  The BHSCP as it is a partnership budget, owned alongside Police and Health and is a statutory function.  SARS was cut by £22k in 2022/23, including a small staffing reduction. A further resource decision was that the work of the LADO was taken on by the SARS team. This is in a period of consultation with unions following the Post Holder retiring.  The safeguarding budget only now contains the Head of Service and 2 QA posts. The QA function could not operate with any cuts and this is essential to safe practice.  The Performance Team’s budget is partly made up of a traded offer from Schools, Public Health and Supporting Families and the remainder of the budget covers core functions around Statutory Reporting and Performance Data to allow the LA to carry out it’s safeguarding function.
Quality Assurance & Performance Total		1,584	1,477	28.9			0
Families, Children & Learning Total		121,672	102,650	854.2			3,147

Budget Strategy 2023-24

Health & Adult Social Care

Service Context

The Health and Adult Social Care Directorate (HASC) consist of Public Health, Adult Social Care and Life Events.

Principle service area responsibilities covered in this strategy include services for vulnerable adults including older people, physical disability, mental health, public health and all ancillary activities. Life Events services include Registrars, Bereavement and Coroner. It is to be noted that the provision of services for adults with learning disability and autism sit within Family, Children and Learning Directorate, and are therefore not within scope of this strategy

The wellbeing of Brighton & Hove residents remains at the heart of our approach and is reflected in the HASC core offer, which is to:

· Provide information and advice for all adults seeking care and support;

· Assess need and arrange help for individuals and their carers who are eligible under the Care Act for support from Adult Social Care;

· Target Public Health interventions to support population health outcomes and reduce health inequalities across the city

· Promote preventative approaches to maintain health & wellbeing, insofar as this reduces immediate demand for more expensive, statutory services;

· Maintain and support the local care market;

· Provide support that reduces the need for social care in the longer term and/or prevents the need for a more expensive service; and

· Safeguard vulnerable adults who are at risk of harm or abuse.

· Provide bereavement and registration services.

While there are a range of service areas across the Directorate that contribute to the delivery of this activity, there are three main budget areas, and these are detailed below:

1) Public Health £0.122m (Funded by grant - gross budget £23.574m)

This service area includes:

• Substance Misuse
• Sexual Health

• Children 0-19 Public Health programmes
• Health Improvement

With respect to the Public Health ring fenced grant, whilst this budget strategy does not propose a focus on this area it continues to play a vital role in the overarching HASC budget strategy for the following reasons:

· Public Health grant is ring fenced with very specific criteria for spend and has to be considered separately from the general fund.

· HASC strategy, expressed in large part in policy terms through the adopted Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy is key to resourcing and delivering whole population health outcomes and in the medium/longer term this preventative focus will contribute to the overall financial stability of both the directorate and the Council.

· In the short term the influence and osmosis of Public Health resource is critical to delivery of wider corporate and directorate priorities working with external partners and stakeholders.

2) Adult Social Care Services (including mental health under S75 arrangement with Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust) £68.358m

This service area includes:

• Assessment, Social Work, Occupational Therapy and community care for adults requiring physical support, mental health support and memory & cognition support
• Community Short Term services
• Telecare and equipment services
• In house provider services

3) Commissioning, Contracts and Performance £3.228m

This service area includes:

• Commissioning & Performance teams
• Self-directed support

· Carer support

4) Life Events (£0.105m)

This service area includes:

• Bereavement Services
• Coroner Services
• Registration Services

In total therefore HASC net budget for 2022/23 is £71.603m. The Community Care budget is £48.921m and equates to 68% of the overall HASC budget, meaning our main area of spend relates to the provision of care for those people who have been assessed as eligible for social care support (Community Care). This covers a vast array of services and includes such areas as Residential and Nursing Care and Home Care. Adult Social Care provision is primarily commissioned rather than internally provided. HASC does manage some in-house services, which are residential care units at Craven Vale, Ireland Lodge and Wayfield Avenue, home care with a reablement focus through Independence at Home and two hostels, New Steine Mews and Glenwood Lodge.

Budget Context

Since 2019/20 there has been a notable change in requests for support from new clients by age group. NHS Digital data shows that nationally there has been an ongoing decrease in requests for social care services from people 65 years and older, and nationally an increase in requests for services from those who are 18 – 64 years, despite a growing population aged 65+. Locally we have seen decreases since 2019/20 in new requests for support across both age groups. However, the rate of decrease has been most notable within 65+ ages, and new requests for 18 – 64 year olds have proportionally risen (2020/21 the proportion of 18–64 year old new requests was 29% of all requests, 2021/22 this has risen to 46%).

The impact of the above is that the number of people in long term funded care services has dropped nationally, and locally has fallen below 3,000 for the first time (though it is to be noted that the 2022/23 data is a head count from April- Sept so does not include the winter months).

FUNDED CARE SERVICE	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23 (Apr – Sept)
Adults receiving domiciliary care	1,647	1,856	1,653	1,364
Adults receiving residential care	651	637	556	502
Adults receiving nursing care	697	591	486	418
Adults receiving a direct payment	459	432	436	421
Total number of adults provided with long term funded care during the period	3,454	3,516	3,131	2,705

In breaking down the data into age groups we can see a drop in numbers of 65+ clients accessing long term support, falling from 6,530 per 100,000 adults in 2019/20 to 5,490 per 100,000 adults in 2021/22. However, we have seen increases in numbers of 18-64 clients accessing long term support rising from 855 per 100,000 adults in 2019/20 to 910 per 100,000 within 2021/22.

The latest CIPFA Performance tracker for 2022 notes a few possible reasons for this.  Firstly, the prevalence of Covid in care homes and the risk of carers bringing Covid into households, likely discouraged older people from seeking residential and home care. Secondly, there is evidence that nationally millions more people provided unpaid care during the first year of the pandemic, as people spent more time at home, or were unwilling to allow others into their home due to fears about spreading Covid. This may have depressed demand for local- authority-provided care for older people.  It is unclear what has driven the increase of 18–64 year-old clients, but this rising demand for social care from working-age adults will impact on spending, due to this group often having more complex and longer-term requirements than the older population (aged 65+).

The rising cost of services and the increasing cost pressures experienced by many of our providers means that ensuring we have the right services at a sustainable price remains challenging. This is a national picture being faced by many local authorities with Adult Social Care responsibilities.  From a budget strategy perspective, the impact of rising inflation and the impact of the pandemic on our unit costs for both residential and nursing care confirms that our current pricing framework, which was already significantly strained, remains challenged.

Following the impact of Covid-19 and potentially of EU Exit, care providers have been dealing with difficulties in workforce recruitment. This has impacted all care sectors across the country but has been particularly acute for home care providers.  Our direction of travel is still to enable people to receive care in their own homes rather than for them move to residential care, though this has been challenging over the past year due to there being currently higher demand for home care than availability.

Adult Social Care Charging Reform is planned to be introduced from October 2023. The reforms include a more generous means-test, a cap on care costs of £86,000, a move towards a ‘fair’ cost of care, and the ability for people who arrange and fund their own care to ask their local authority to do it on their behalf. The financial impact of these reforms is as yet not fully understood, with the Local Government Association warning that the cost of the reforms could be significantly higher than currently estimated, and could create further workforce pressure, with additional staff projected to be requires to carry out extra care and financial assessments for those seeking benefits from the reforms. Based on the information known so far we have modelled the investment required for HASC to deliver on these reforms.

Budget Strategy – Direction of Travel

HASC’s vision is for everyone in Brighton & Hove to have the best opportunity to live a healthy, happy and fulfilling life, by ensuring that they are starting well, living well, ageing well and dying well, and this is set out in the joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy. Our mission is to promote and improve health and wellbeing, supporting people to live independent and fulfilling lives.

In order to achieve this and meet our corporate financial responsibilities of savings and reducing pressures our budget strategy requires:

- Demand and Complexity management – whilst both Public Health and Adult Social Care are driven in large part by demand we will continue to adopt means that manage this effectively and equally look to the best services to support the increasing complexity of need we continue to see. This will require ongoing close working with our NHS partners and other key stakeholders. For example, the mental health JSNA shows a significant rise in demand and complexity for people with mental health needs; the Changing Futures Programme provides a multi-agency framework with financial input to support this area. In managing demand, we will focus on prevention and reablement to support and enable people to remain well and independent for as long as possible, reducing the need for long term care. We will also focus on technology enabled care to support people in the most person centred and cost-effective way. We will adopt new models of working in order to manage the increased demand the new Charging Reforms will bring to reduce the pressure on workforce requirements, such as increasing and improving customers' ability to self-assess.

- Market management – a review of framework rates will be undertaken alongside continued investment into other service areas such as our domiciliary care services, community support services and supported living provision to ensure that provision across the city remains financially sustainable. We will continue to review the in-house service offer to ensure it aligns with these commissioning intentions. We will enhance the current brokerage offer to manage unit costs for care and support. We will review the Direct Payment offer, with the ambition of increasing the uptake of Direct Payments to employ Personal Assistants.

- Financial Management – ensuring robust financial management, value for money and efficiencies.   We will focus on our in-house care delivery, ensuring effective use of these services, to manage costs and to support reducing long term care needs.  We will continue with budget scrutiny and controls on spend to ensure good financial management.  We will look at what we charge for services to ensure they are in line with costs and will improve collection processes to maximise income. 

Investment in Services

The directorate has received growth funding over the past 3 years of £20.2m acknowledging a combination of increasing demand, complexity and unit cost. HASC are requesting budget growth for 2023/24 of £6.780m for adult social care services, and a prediction of £4.847m required for delivery of charging reforms. Adult Social Care pressures are calculated on unit cost increases and increases in demand and complexity in line with trends from previous years. 

 In 2022/23 HASC committed to managing its pressures and reducing its budget by £2.224m, as part of the Council’s savings programme. HASC is projected to deliver a forecast of a 1% overspend on outturn by end of 2022/23, which is in line with expectations on a demand led budget.

Supporting the Council’s Priorities – HASC supports a One Council approach recognising that it will lead on delivering corporate priorities in some areas working with partners and stakeholders and equally elsewhere, where it may not lead, it can still offer significant support.

A city to call home

The Directorate will work jointly with colleagues in Housing, Neighbourhoods and Communities Directorate to ensure the accommodation and social care needs of residents are met. This includes close working on the Changing Futures Programme and confirming service level agreements. We are continuing to identify new models of accommodation in the city for people with complex eligible needs. 

A City Working for All

The Directorate’s Commissioning Strategy will use of the Council’s spending power to support local people and businesses, including consideration of social value within contracts. We will continue the integration agenda working with our NHS colleagues to optimise commercial opportunity and economies of scale using our joint buying power. With our sector’s significant contribution to the local economy we will support actions agreed to stimulate recovery and respond to any negative impact from the EU exit.

A Stronger City

The Directorate will continue our investment in, and partnership working with the local voluntary and community sector and build on joint community working developed through the Covid-19 response.

Ongoing development of social work practice continues to safeguard the most vulnerable in the City from harm, abuse and exploitation.  The Directorate is working jointly across the council to support the Accessible City Strategy and the Anti-Racism Strategy.

A Growing and Learning City

The Directorate will continue to support strong professional practice informed by national drivers and evidence-based approaches to deliver impact for people and communities. We will explore all the learning from Covid-19 to apply opportunities to improve working practices.  The pandemic has raised both nationally and locally the profile of both public health and Adult Social Care (independently from and working with our NHS partners) and we will ensure this learning is applied to future planning. We will work with colleagues from Families, Children and Learning to ensure well managed transitions for individuals between Children and Adult services.

A Sustainable City

The Directorate will explore opportunities to support to delivery of key corporate priorities, for example. carbon reduction in the City. Through our commissioning responsibilities and relationships with providers across the city we will explore options to promote and measure carbon reduction.

A Heathy and Caring City

The Directorate will take a key role in the delivering actions of the Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy, supporting an increase in healthy life expectancy and a reduction of health inequalities.

Service Area					Savings Detail
Section	Service Area	Gross budget 2022/23	Net budget 2022/23	FTEs 2022/23	Brief Summary of Budget Proposal/Strategy and Risks	EIA No.	Savings Proposals   2023/24
		£'000	£'000	FTE			£'000
HEALTH & ADULT SOCIAL CARE
ADULT SOCIAL CARE
Community Care  budget funding packages of care to meet statutory responsibilities across adult care groups apart from Learning Disability and Mental Health. Services include; community support, home care, supported accommodation, residential and nursing care.	Physical Support & Sensory Support 2,080 budgeted capacity for 2022/23	44,191	29,527	0.0	HASC has a modernisation programme with programme support to achieve delivery. This is an ambitious programme and risks to delivery include a lack of resource to implement. Risks to delivery would include requiring urgent placements at high costs to meet the winter and other system pressures. The action the directorate will take will be to both manage the pressures and deliver the required savings through effective use of the community care budget by: - Managing demand - Technology enabled care - Focus on prevention - Commissioning Strategy Delivery Risk:  The service is expected to receive investment of c£5m in 2023/24 to meet identified demand and inflationary pressures. This puts the service in a stronger starting position and means that it can focus on implementing improvements to care and service pathways to improve its cost base and reduce long term, expensive placements.	9	1,500
Assessment and Support Teams. Social Work teams delivering statutory duties under the Care Act to assess eligible needs, intervene where people are at risk to themselves, others or the community. Deliver statutory duties under the Mental Capacity Act, Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoL's)	Assistant Director Community Short Term Services Social Work Team Access Point Financial Assessments Rapid Response Team Hospital Discharge Service Acute Planned Response Service Carers Development Team Assessment and Reablement Deprivation of Liberty Safeguarding team Independent Living Carelink	10,076	8,472	211.6	It is proposed to increase Health income to the Hospital Social Work Team and to increase fees & charges. Delivery risk: This assumes the successful outcome of negotiations with the NHS. Increased income levels are dependent on the number of fee paying clients not reducing.	10	124
Assessment & Support and Intervention Team (SIT)	Community Equipment Service	2,654	213	0.0	2% cash limited inflationary increase to contract. Delivery Risk: Increase in supply costs impact on delivery of the saving	11	49
Hostel Accommodation	Hostel Accommodation 71 beds budgeted for in 2022/23 (Glenwood Lodge and New Steine Mews)	1,760	872	26.1	Hostel services are part funded by grant and one service operates from leased premises. Any changes to the service would need to consider building issues, service requirements and grant funding.
Memory & Cognition Support - Residential	Ireland Lodge Residential Wayfield Ave Residential 58 budgeted capacity for 2022/23	3,133	2,683	83.0	Savings proposals are based on external rental income for an area of one of the buildings (£212k), and increasing fees & charges and increasing long term beds in order to enhance client contributions (£52k). Delivery Risk: market for rental uncertain. Increase of long-term beds reduces hospital discharge short term beds available. Increased income levels are dependent on the number of fee paying clients not reducing.	12	264
Physical Support - Residential	Craven Vale Residential 24 budgeted capacity for 2022/23	1,653	1,543	44.0	Contributes to provision in the city alongside P&I sector beds.
Community Short Term Services	Community Short Term Services & Independence at Home (Including Early Supported Stroke Discharge and Apportionment of Assessment Duties Budget capacity for 2022/23 assumes a max of 65 people in service at any time through 12 month period	2,516	2,385	73.2	Statutory service under significant pressure.
Adult Social Care Total		65,983	45,695	437.9			1,937
S75 SUSSEX PARTNERSHIP FOUNDATION TRUST (SPFT)
Community Care  budget funding packages of care, support, residential/nursing care for people suffering a cognitive impairment (mainly dementia in older people);  services will include Community Support, Home Care, direct payments, supported accommodation, residential/nursing care and specialist placements	Memory & Cognition Support 442 budgeted capacity for 2022/23	16,180	9,516	0.0	As for Physical Disability, HASC has a modernisation programme with programme support to deliver change. This is an ambitious programme and risks to delivery could include a lack of appropriate resources. Risks to delivery would include requiring urgent placements at high costs to meet the winter and other system pressures. The action the directorate will take will be to both manage the pressures and deliver the required savings through effective use of the community care budget by: - Managing demand - Technology enabled care - Focus on prevention - Commissioning Strategy Delivery Risk:  The service is expected to receive investment of £1.5m in 2023/24 to meet identified demand and cost pressures. This puts the service in a strong starting position and means that it can focus on implementing improvements to care and service pathways to improve its cost base and reduce long term, expensive placements.	9	433
Community Care  budget funding packages of care, support, residential/nursing care for people suffering a functional mental illness  services will include Community Support, Home Care, direct payments, supported accommodation, residential/nursing care and specialist placements	Mental Health Support 554 budgeted capacity for 2022/23	12,076	9,878	0.0	HASC has a modernisation programme with programme support to deliver the above. This is an ambitious programme and risks to delivery could include a lack of resource. Risks to delivery would include requiring urgent placements at high costs to meet the winter and other system pressures. The action the directorate will take will be to both manage the pressures and deliver the required savings through effective use of the community care budget by: - Managing demand - Technology enabled care - Focus on prevention - Commissioning Strategy Delivery Risk:  The service is expected to receive investment of £2.6m in 2023/24 to meet identified demand and cost pressures. Together with S117 funding from the NHS, this puts the service in a strong starting position and means that it can focus on implementing improvements to care and service pathways to improve its cost base and reduce long term, expensive placements.	9	432
Assessment, Support and Intervention Team (SIT). Social Work teams delivering statutory duties under the Care Act to assess eligible needs, intervene where people are at risk to themselves, others or the community. Deliver statutory duties under the Mental Capacity Act, Mental Health Act Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoL's)	Section 75 Staffing teams Including: Mental Health Homeless Team Assessment Treatment Service Living Well with Dementia Service Adult Mental Health Practitioners (AMHP) Crisis Resolution Home Treatment Team (CRHTT) Mental Health Management	3,576	3,269	56.8	Section 75 review should achieve modest savings based on recent trend data and the effectiveness of the partnership in managing demands. Delivery Risk: Joint working with health partners and timescales required	10	122
S75 Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust (SPFT) Total		31,832	22,663	56.8			987
INTERGRATED COMMISSIONING
Commissioning & Contracts	Support to Carers	748	217	0.0	Preventative budget that supports cost avoidance.
Commissioning & Contracts	Adults Commissioning & Performance Team Executive Director Adult Services Safeguarding Team	3,241	1,379	47.8	Primary resource for securing placements and services and managing the provider market. The service scrutinises and manages contracts (with the NHS) to achieve good value for money. This is particularly critical in the current inflationary environment.
Commissioning & Contracts	Integrated Commissioning	2,321	1,384	1.8	Seeking alternative funding for non-statutory community advocacy and Community support worker contract. No inflationary increase to block contracts. Delivery Risk: Increased costs pressures present delivery of the savings challenges	11	173
Commissioning & Contracts	Self Directed Support	142	142	0.0	No saving opportunity identified.
Commissioning & Contracts	Learning Disability Development Fund	106	106	0.0	No saving opportunity identified.
Integrated Commissioning Total		6,558	3,228	49.6			173
LIFE EVENTS
Life Events	Bereavement Services	1,598	(380)	19.1	No saving opportunity identified. Income trends are down based on 2022/23 activity.
Life Events	Coroner Services	549	548	4.3	No saving opportunity identified.
Life Events	Registrars	720	(273)	17.3	No saving opportunity identified.
Life Events Total		2,867	(105)	40.7			0
PUBLIC HEALTH
Public Health	Ring-fenced Public Health Grant	0	(21,661)	n/a	Ring-fenced budget.
Substance Misuse	Substance Misuse services residential rehab	6,229	5,652	2.3	Ring-fenced budget.
Sexual Health	Commissioning of sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention and treatment, contraception, HIV prevention and advice services.	4,891	4,828	1.0	Ring-fenced budget.
Children 0-19 Public Health Programmes		6,212	6,181	4.9	Ring-fenced budget.
Health Improvement		6,242	5,122	43.9	Ring-fenced budget.
Public Health Total		23,574	122	52.1			0
Health & Adult Social Care Total		130,814	71,603	637.1			3,097

Budget Strategy 2023-24

Economy, Environment & Culture

Service Context

The Economy, Environment & Culture directorate works with City and City region partners to develop and deliver services that support low carbon economic growth to maintain an attractive, connected, and well-run city for residents, businesses and visitors.  

The Economy, Environment & Culture directorate is leading the city’s programme of recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and progress towards carbon neutrality by 2030. 

This is delivered through the following service areas:

· City Development & Regeneration – Shaping development in the city through the statutory plan making process, development management which ensures good urban design and protection of heritage and ensuring compliance with the building regulations to ensure safety. Leading the council’s work with Greater Brighton and city partners to develop a strong and prosperous and sustainable economy. Leading the Carbon Neutral 2030 Programme, the Circular Economy framework and the Living Coast Biosphere through a growing Sustainability Team. Collecting section 106 and CIL payments, delivering investment in infrastructure and major regeneration and projects and developing new affordable homes through the Homes for Brighton & Hove Joint Venture and New Homes for Neighbourhoods Programme.

· Transport – Delivering an accessible, safe and sustainable city transport network that supports growth and enables the city to become carbon neutral by 2030. Maintaining and improving the city’s transport network and its highways infrastructure to increase resilience, including managing the risks posed by flooding and protecting coastal structures, as well as working closely with the Department for Transport, Transport for The South East (TfSE) and Coast to Capital Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) to deliver major infrastructure projects including major City Centre Improvements such as Valley Gardens. Managing the transport network through regulating traffic and parking, influencing people’s travel choices to reduce congestion, delivering improvements in air quality and providing sustainable transport options including significant enhancements in public transport provision and Active Travel.

· City Environmental Management – Delivering recycling, refuse and street cleaning services to improve the cleanliness of the city, including the delivery of our commercial waste service, garden waste service, bulky waste service, and graffiti reduction strategy. Leading the decarbonisation of the Council’s fleet through the delivery of the Fleet Strategy. Management of our city’s parks and open spaces, including the delivery of the Stanmer Park Masterplan.

· Property – Leading the council’s property strategy and the delivery of corporate and commercial property services with an emphasis upon an investment strategy that delivers new revenue streams from our assets, whilst keeping the council’s assets safe and fit for purpose, and contributing to housing delivery, the carbon neutral agenda and community wealth. The council’s property and land portfolio includes operational assets such as council offices, town halls, heritage, schools and leisure centre assets, commercial properties and agricultural farmlands.  Developing and delivering the City Downland Estate Plan to promote natural capital investment, support biodiversity and tackle climate change. 

· Culture, Tourism & Sport – Leading the recovery of the city’s unique arts, culture, museums, events and tourism sectors and expanding these for a wider city region, working extensively with partners. Strengthening the city’s positive reputation through progressing the ten-year plan for revitalised sports facilities and investing in key leisure assets, including Kingsway to the Sea. Managing our visitor economy assets including the Brighton Centre, the seafront and our destination marketing service Visit Brighton.  Managing outdoor events in the city to support the reputation of the city as a leisure destination and contribute significantly to the economic impact of tourism. The annual calendar is important for cultural recovery, tourism and fundraising by charities and community groups.

Key metrics for services within Economy, Environment & Culture are as follows:

City Development & Regeneration

• The Planning Service is the third busiest Unitary Planning team in England – dealing with over 3600 planning applications and 600 enforcement cases a year, whilst protecting 3,400 listed buildings and 33 conservation areas.

• The Planning Service consented new homes that led to 1073 completions in 2021/22, of which 479 were affordable.  

• The Estate Regeneration team has delivered 14 projects and 227 new council homes via New Homes for Neighbourhoods and has further circa 652 homes in the pipeline.  In addition, they are supporting the delivery of a further 346 affordable homes through the Homes for Brighton & Hove joint venture around half of which will become council homes.

• The Economic Development team delivered the Invest4 grant programme of grants (a total of £2.63m), as part of the Business Hot House project, to 200 businesses across the Coast to capital area, fifty of which are in the City of Brighton & Hove. The team also delivered the Business & IP Centre Sussex (Regional Hub), supporting 1,083 businesses in 2021/22 (exceeding the target of 500) and expanding the service to create BIPC Locals in Crawley, Eastbourne and Hastings.

• The Sustainability team distributed £7.8m Carbon Neutral Fund in 2022 to council projects to reduce carbon emissions, enhance biodiversity and tackle climate adaptation.

• Working with Greater Brighton partners to deliver on the energy and water 10 pledges, including lobbying to tightening water efficiency standards for new homes from 110 litres usage per person per day to 80 to reduce the pressure from new buildings on our water-stressed region.

• The Living Coast influences the sustainable and biodiverse management of 390km² of land in urban and rural settings, and provides opportunities for restoring nature, nature connection, health, wellbeing, clean water and local food for more than a third of a million people.  The Living Coast is the UK’s only urban Biosphere and part of the global network of 701 UNESCO Biospheres.

Property & Design

• Landlord to over 650 commercial urban buildings and over 1000 tenants.

• Manage 10,500 acres of City Downland Estate farmland and Landlord to 14 main farms.

• Corporate Landlord to over 550 operational buildings.

• Produce £11.5m revenue income per annum to contribute to the council’s budget, supporting service delivery.

• Achieve £6m of capital receipts per annum to contribute to the council ‘s Capital Investment Strategy and programme.

• Reduced co2 emissions on council’s corporate portfolio by 10.9% in 20/21.

City Environmental Management

• Managing approximately 147 parks and gardens spread across the city.

• Management of 8 cemeteries covering approximately 69 hectares.

• Managing 45 playgrounds and 74 outdoor spaces.

• Cleansing 700 miles of pavement.

• Carrying out 7.5 million waste collections per year.

• Providing power to fuel 25,000 homes a year from incineration of waste.

• Management and maintenance of 536 council vehicles.

Culture, Tourism and Sport

• Sports facilities with over 1.5 million attendances in the city each year.

• Co-ordination for over 300 outdoor events per annum in public spaces.

• 13 km of seafront, working 365 days per year with 200 properties under management

• Brighton Centre delivers £50-£60m of economic impact for the city per annum and sells 250,000 tickets each year

• Visit Brighton has 540 business partners, promoting the city to visitors and attracting high value conferencing

• Tourism employs over 15,000 people, supporting 16% of city jobs

City Transport

• Maintaining 624km of roads, 12 km of Coastline, 1000km of pavements, 20km of bus priority lanes, 325 highway and seafront structures and 38 km of permanent cycle lanes.

• Delivering a £22m Capital Programme of integrated and sustainable transport improvements to better connect and improve neighbourhoods and manage key transport routes, including development of a £28m Bus Service Improvement Programme. 

• Managing over 44,300 on and off-street car park spaces, as well as issuing more than 37,700 resident permits and 6,700 other permits, including processing 4,200 Blue Badge applications and managing 11,200existing city resident Blue Badge passes.

• Dealing with more than 4,200 highway obstructions and issuing and enforcing approximately 4,000 skips, scaffold and tables & chairs licences on the highway.

• Leading on improving the City’s Air Quality including establishment of Air Quality Management Areas through automated monitoring and air quality analysis and active intervention in partnership with adjacent Local Authorities and Public Transport Operators.

• Leading on decarbonising Transport, a major contributor to the City, through ambitious policies and programmes including Liveable City Centre and the existing and further proposed Ultra Low Emission Zone.

• Maintaining more than 1800 major signal junctions and crossings, 17 variable message signs, and 36 vehicle activated signs to effectively move traffic around the city.

• Leading on the investment in electric vehicle charging infrastructure including the installation of 276 on-street charging points in residential areas and development of electric hubs with rapid taxi and public charging facilities.

Directorate objectives and the direction of travel for 2020/24 includes:

· Leading the city’s Covid-19 recovery and renewal programme

· Delivery the Climate Assembly and establishing a 2030 Carbon Neutral City plan

· Working across the council and the city to establishing a community wealthbuilding programme and supporting the city’s transition to a circular and more equitable economy

· Leading on the Greater Brighton City Region Covid-19 Economic Recovery Plan and Energy and Water Plans

· Developing a new sustainable local Transport Plan for the City, including a local Cycling &Walking Infrastructure Plan

· Developing a new City Downland Estate Plan

· Progressing the development of a deliverable business case for the roll out of full fibre and 5G

· Developing a Resources & Waste Strategy for the City

· Developing a new Sports Facilities Investment Plan

· Progressing the city’s major regeneration and infrastructure projects

· Delivering new council homes and affordable home through the New Homes for Neighbourhood Programme and Homes for Brighton & Hove Joint Venture

Budget Strategy

The directorate provides strong civic leadership and fulfils a specific place making role, leading the City’s 2030 Carbon Neutral Plan, community wealth building programme, and ongoing Covid-19 recovery work.  Working with the Coast to Capital Local Enterprise Partnership, and partners across the Greater Brighton city region, South East 7 (SE7) and Transport for The South East (TfSE) to attract external investment in low carbon growth, increase economic resilience, improve sustainability, strategic and local transport connectivity and local access to jobs, apprenticeships and housing. Focus is also upon improving the efficiency of services to maintain the city's infrastructure and environment, whilst working increasingly with partners, communities and businesses to find alternative ways to share environmental responsibilities, generate new income streams, reduce costs, and become financially more self-sufficient.

Leading and delivering the City’s 2030 Carbon Neutral Programme

The budget strategy will focus upon leading the 2030 Carbon Neutral Programme and overseeing a co-ordinated programme of investment in projects that will progress the city towards carbon neutrality by 2030.  This includes securing investment to deliver sustainable infrastructure, low carbon economic growth, and sustainable travel, building upon the outcomes of the 2020 Climate Assembly and supporting the development of a liveable city centre, low traffic neighbourhoods, and a new Ultra Low Emission Zone, replacing existing income streams or providing new opportunities, to find other alternatives to income from parking.

As local authority funding changes and demand for services increase, continual improvement in energy and carbon management will contribute towards controlling and reducing energy, fuel and water consumption, and spend, contributing to development of the Council’s financial resilience, and protection of front-line services. A key focus will be on modernising services to ensure we continue delivering the best for our customers whilst reducing running costs and lowering our carbon footprint.

Leading the city’s Covid-19 Recovery & Renewal Programme

A continued focus throughout 2023/24 will be supporting the city’s recovery from the effects of Coronavirus.  This includes securing investment in sustainable infrastructure, energy and visitor economy projects, retrofitting programmes, measures which promote active travel, improving air quality, and delivery of major regeneration projects.

Supporting the recovery of visitor numbers and spend through major events and attractions in the city.  Continuing to recover employment in the creative, cultural and tourism sectors.  Making best use of the council’s operational and commercial property portfolios, with a focus upon delivering sites for affordable housing and supporting community wealth. 

Areas of Focus for Savings

· Savings for the directorate will be achieved through a mixture of commercial approaches to generating income, establishing alternative delivery models, service redesigns and transformations,

· Changing the way services are commissioned, finding alternative ways to share environmental responsibilities, generating new income streams, reducing costs, becoming financially more self-sufficient, and focusing on delivering core services well.

· By embedding our carbon management programme across the Council’s operations, we will prove ourselves capable of meeting the carbon challenge head on. By doing so we will ensure our continued leadership and influence of local businesses, communities and residents to deliver a city that progresses towards carbon neutrality by 2030. 

· Moving forward on new income streams to supplement and replace income from parking, building on the vision for a new Local Transport Plan for the city and opportunities linked to the Liveable City Centre, Ultra-Low Emission Zone and Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.

· Reviewing and revising parking permit fees and tariffs across the city to maximise income generation opportunities and encourage a reduction in congestion, whist promoting alternative, sustainable forms of transport by moderating demand. Alongside this, improving the approach to debt recovery in parking and tackling permit fraud.

· Reviewing the council’s operational assets to support changes in service delivery across the council, reducing spend on running costs wherever possible and delivering potential capital receipts and developing a new Accommodation Strategy focusing on rationalisation of the council’s corporate offices. Review the council’s commercial assets in conjunction with the One Public Estate Agenda, working with other public sector organisations in the region to release sites and or re-locate services enabling regeneration and comprehensive redevelopment of sites.

· Reviewing access to council services across the city and contributing to the corporate customer experience strategy through new arrangements to Customer service centres and switchboard reception services 

Areas for investment

· Delivery of the capital investment programme of projects to support the city recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and transition to Carbon Neutral by 2030. 

· Long term capital investment to renew and strengthen the infrastructure of the city will continue, to ensure effective management of the highways network and improve air quality, along with the delivery of major regeneration projects to bring about quality new affordable housing and business space whilst generating income from land and property assets and increasing business rate and council tax returns.

· Continue investment in the development of new Council housing through the New Homes for Neighbourhood Programme and new living wage rent housing through the Homes for Brighton & Hove Joint Venture.

· Delivering major regeneration programmes.  During 2021 and 2022 over 500 new homes and 80,000 ft2 of new office space will come online at Circus Street and Preston Barracks (both major regeneration sites), generating approximately £1m per year in new council tax and business rates.

· Investment in Seafront Infrastructure, including £12m investment in the eastern seafront at Black Rock and progressing the restoration of Madeira Terraces.

· Implementation of the new 10-year Sports Facilities Investment Plan, including initial investment in the King Alfred Leisure Centre.

· Delivery of £9.5m government Levelling Up funding for £13 million regeneration of Kingsway to the Sea.

Implementation of the City Downland Estate Plan with over 60 actions prioritised into a short, medium and long term programme of projects, using natural capital and generating income Continued investment in the city’s cultural assets, with the completion of the ‘Heritage Centre Stage’ restorage of the Corn Exchange and Studio Theatre on the Royal Pavilion Estate and The Dance Space at Circus Street.

· Delivery of the Royal Pavilion Estate Masterplan and £35m capital investment programme. 

· Investment in the expansion of the City Bikeshare Scheme through the procurement of a new operator to deliver a city-wide scheme including the introduction of e-bikes.

· Investment in the Local Transport Plan capital programme to deliver integrated transport projects and a maintenance programme of carriage and footway resurfacing works on the transport network.

· Continue investing in the city’s electric vehicle charging network utilising government grant funding.

· Continue designing the Brighton Marina to River Adur coastal protection scheme in partnership with other Authorities and with significant investment from the Environment Agency.

· Investment in active travel and cycling and walking infrastructure through the delivery of the Local Cycling & Walking Infrastructure Plan.

· Investment in School Streets and Low Traffic Neighbourhood initiatives.

· Investment in the city’s playgrounds, parks and open spaces including the completion of the Stanmer Park Master Plan restoration project.

· Investment in energy efficiency measures for the council’s operational estate with further phases of the Solar PV and decarbonisation programmes on the council’s corporate buildings .

· Continue modernising the city’s street lighting infrastructure as part of the invest to save initiative.

· Investment in the Fleet Strategy to progress the city council’s fleet towards carbon neutrality by 2030.

· Investment in the City’s Tree collection to tackle the impacts of elm disease and ash dieback.

· £3m capital investment in the city’s public toilets.

· Continue investment in City Environment infrastructure and operational sites to improve the working environment and impact on the services’ carbon footprint.

· Investment in service delivery systems to improve service performance and customer experience.

Supporting the Council’s Priorities

The directorate’s action plan and budget strategy can support the council’s Corporate Plan and sustainability priorities as follows:

A City to Call Home

· Deliver a programme of affordable house building, through the New Homes for Neighbourhood Programme, and the Homes for Brighton & Hove Joint Venture.

· Deliver the Sport and Physical Activity modernisation programme to progress the quality of sports facilities in the city over the next ten years, enabling greater participation.

· Oversee delivery of the City Plan, ensuring as many homes as possible to address the shortfall against our objectively assessed need for new homes.

A City Working for All

· Work with City Region Partners in the Greater Brighton Economic Board to develop and implement the Covid 19 Economic Recovery Plan.

· Consider the jobs, skills and training implications of a move to a low carbon economy, and prepare to capitalise on opportunities.

· Promote the city nationally and internationally to accelerate the recovery of business, leisure and retail activity, supporting thousands of jobs. Use external funds at every opportunity.

· Develop new partnerships designed to increase the positive impact of the visitor economy in the city and to bid for new funds.

· Progress plans to improve the seafront as an asset for residents and visitors

· Improve the look and feel of the city through the development and implementation of Waste, Recycling and Reuse Strategy making it more attractive to residents, visitors and investors.

· Develop and deliver a playground investment programme.

A Stronger City

· Lead the delivery of the recovery plan for the arts and cultural sectors to minimise the loss of creative people in the city.   Ensure artists, organisations and audiences are informed and included in activities.

· Implementing City Plan Part 2 and commencing a review of Part 1 to put the city in a strong position from which to plan development that is high quality and sustainable.

· Implementing the Community Infrastructure Levy, to generate investment to deliver vital new city infrastructure.

A Sustainable City

· Leading the city’s Carbon Neutral 2030 Programme, and preparing the Carbon Neutral 2030 Plan for agreement by Committee, informed by the Climate Assembly.

· Prepare and agree a Circular Economy Routemap for the City, focusing on moving key sectors of the economy away from a linear use and dispose model to one that maximises resource reuse.

· Endorsement of the a new City Downland Estate Plan with a future Vision for our 12,500 acres of City Downland, to make best use of our unique landscape, and contribute to the carbon neutral agenda creating emission reduction savings, promoting different uses including local food production and exploring a possible solar farm to create a self-sufficient renewable energy supply.

· Create savings through the reduction of co2 emissions in the council’s operational estate deploying energy efficient technology and rolling out a programme of solar photovoltaics where suitable.   

· Work in partnership with key stakeholders to develop a new Local Transport Plan and a Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan that supports sustainable travel, with investment in walking, cycling and smart traffic signalling to contribute towards the city becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

· Deliver the Local Transport Plan capital programme for investment in integrated transport projects and a maintenance programme of carriage and footway resurfacing works on the transport network.

· Deliver the Bus Service Improvement Programme to increase passenger numbers on public transport and help the city to become carbon neutral by 2030.

· Continue investing in the city’s electric vehicle charging network utilising government grant funding.

· Continue designing the Brighton Marina to River Adur coastal protection scheme in partnership with other Authorities and with significant investment from the Environment Agency.

· Engage with strategic partners via Transport for the South East and Coast to Capital LEP to consider local and regional transport needs, developing and submitting bids for investment and jointly co-ordinating transport projects.

· Increase the range of materials that can be recycled in the city, improve the quality of kerbside and extend on street recycling

· Extend tree cover, creating more resilient woodlands in the city whilst tackling tree disease.

· Deliver the Fleet Strategy to decarbonise council fleet and improve service efficiency.

Service Area					Savings Detail
Section	Service Area	Gross budget 2022/23	Net budget 2022/23	FTEs 2022/23	Brief Summary of Budget Proposal/Strategy and Risks	EIA No.	Savings Proposals   2023/24
		£'000	£'000	FTE			£'000
ECONOMY, ENVIRONMENT & CULTURE
TRANSPORT
Transport Projects & Engineering		5,769	5,011	40.8
	Street Lighting NB gross expenditure is £2.16m				Use savings that have been gained through the spend to save project (£0.300m) reduction in management and maintenance.  Impact: Saving had been earmarked for Seafront Heritage Lighting Project, therefore the Council will need to find money to fund this or it will impact on future delivery of seafront lighting restoration.	13	300
	Supported Buses NB gross exp £1.537m				Reorganise routes to generate a saving. A saving of £0.053m has been gained by combining route 57 with the 47. Due to rising fuel costs and inflationary increases there is already a shortfall of £0.025m with a further pressure for 2023/24 due to be £0.791m - this will be mitigated by the Bus Services Improvement Plan (BSIP). Risk: Proposal is politically sensitive - some areas of the city will have less access to public transport. To address this, the Medium term strategy will reflect the BSIP funding profile and how the risk of a 'cliff edge' of reduce services will be mitigated in the future. DfT BSIP terms outline that Local Authorities are obligated to maintain levels of spending on socially necessary services where delivering the BSIP outcomes through an Enhanced Partnership. BHCC BSIP includes a commitment to enhancing socially and economically necessary bus services. Reduction of core funding for Supported Buses potentially impacts on BSIP deliverability and government funding for this but BSIP itself will still be a significant investment in the network. There would be staffing impacts if a significant proportion of Supported Bus Services were reduced and there may be further staffing impacts if the level of BSIP funding is reduced by government although some roles are currently being recruited for delivery of BSIP and therefore this will need to be managed.	14	53
Parking Services	Parking	28,249	(16,962)	135.2	See parking proposals below to meet inflationary increase requirement of £0934m. Figures in bold (with exception of Concessionary Travel) meet this inflationary increase requirement.
	Concessionary Bus Fares				The saving is essentially in recognition of reduced bus patronage that, following DfT direction, the council is currently continuing to fund as it did throughout the pandemic. Patronage is at 75% to 80% and the proposal is to better match funding to patronage levels either through contract re-negotiation or movement to the DfT’s Reimbursement Tool. However, the Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) and the funding provided for this will still enable investment in the wider network and therefore potentially provides some mitigation. Delivery Risk: Proposal has possible equality implications – operators may withdraw services, partly or entirely funded by Concessionary Travel payments to some areas of the city that may subsequently have restricted access to public transport. However, medium term planning can attempt to mitigate impacts through the council’s existing and BSIP funding. DfT have confirmed BSIP funding can only be used to enhance existing and supported bus services, not to directly replace withdrawn services or maintain status quo funding levels, including Concessionary Fares. The current fixed-term deal needs to be negotiated with bus companies. Journeys are currently at around 80% patronage which means the council is subsidising bus companies by approximately £1.5 million. This will require detailed analysis of journeys and associated contract payment mechanisms and renegotiation of these. A part-year saving is possible but a recent DfT letter indicated that a reduction in concessionary travel payments would risk an equivalent reduction in overall revenue funding (although it is difficult to understand how government could achieve this as there is no legislative mechanism to do so). Any savings to this area (and Supported Buses) may therefore carry contractual and funding risks. With regard to the latter, further advice from Counsel is being sought to provide assurance alongside discussions with DfT.	14	950
	Parking				Make all On Street and surface car parks 8am - 8pm to ensure consistency across zones. This would include removing the winter tariff on the seafront. This would effectively mean an additional one hour parking cost for users from 8am-9am in most cases. Current estimate is £0.150m taking into account demand loss and implementation costs but needs more detailed work.
	Parking				Remove all Pay & Display Machines from the City which amounts to 22% of all transactions (Card 20% and cash under 2%). This would eliminate the large budget pressure for converting all machines to 4G by early 2023 and would lead to savings on cash collection, maintenance and other costs. This would allow potential variable emission charging to be focussed on paybyphone app. Risks would be around digital exclusion as cash/ card facility would not be available so all payments would be through paybyphone app (accounts for around 78% of payments at the moment and growing. A campaign of encouraging people to register for app ahead of parking in Brighton would also be focussed on. Also need to consider the large signing costs which link to other parking proposals. Working with finance to capitalise costs and expected to be in region of £0.220m
	Parking				Remove 1 hour parking tariff in on and / or off street car parks across the city meaning lowest tariff cost would be for 2 hours. The main risk is huge demand loss as many may choose alternative options so we are looking carefully at the figures to see if this is a viable saving. Current estimate is £0.250m taking into account demand loss and implementation costs but needs more detailed work.
	Parking				Income from new parking schemes being introduced in 2022/23 including Hollingbury area, Hallyburton Road area and the Withdean area. Current estimate is £0.115m taking into account implementation costs on capital borrowing per year and the costs for more enforcement officers for these new schemes.
	Parking				Change zones N (Central Hove), J (Goldsmid), C (Queens Park) and H (RSCH area) from low to medium / High tariffs - currently just Central Brighton & Brunswick & Adelaide area - main risks are high demand loss which needs to be factored in, particularly as this on-street income is currently underachieving. It is estimated this would be in the region of £0.200m. To change all zones to high tariff including zone M and parts of Central Brighton would be a further £0.200m. This would include incorporating Kings Road seafront section into relevant zone (Z or M). Likely to encounter resident and ward Councillor concerns.	15	200
	Parking				A programme of converting light touch schemes into full schemes and combining zones over 4 years. Possible resident concerns about increasing hours and complaints about currently underutilised zones becoming more full. Will require additional resource to deliver.	15	300
Head of City Transport		572	572	3.0
Traffic Management		5,465	4,018	32.5
	Winter Maintenance				Reviewing the Winter Service to increase efficiency and reduce costs, including Agency costs and impacts on wider Council operations. A review is planned to commence in early 2023 and will involve consultation with staff and service users.	16	30
Transport Policy and Strategy		562	552	14.8
Transport Total		40,617	(6,809)	226.3			1,833
CITY ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
Head of City Environmental Management	Head of City Environmental Management	197	197	1.8
City Clean	Public Toilets	917	901	17.6	Proposal is to identify the most viable option for each toilet site to allow the service to operate within a reduced budget, including removing the current budget pressure. The options to be considered are: keep open where possible and introduce charging or handover to a third party to mitigate some cost; or close permanently in a number of cases.  Savings will be achieved through reductions in maintenance, energy and consumable costs, and, potentially, staffing, with income generation (charging) at some sites. It is particularly important to consider charging for sites that are refurbished, starting with Daltons, Kings Esplanade and Station Road. Charging could also be introduced at Shelter Hall and West Pier Arches. Note, this will not cover all operating costs. For those that are recommended for handover, which are likely to be in parks, some may have to be closed pending handover to ensure the service does not introduce a further budget pressure.	17	300
	Collections	5,672	5,672	153.0
	Streets	5,483	5,481	167.0
	Bulky Waste	0	(60)	0.0	Increase Bulky Waste Collection fees to introduce an income - was proposed last year but removed by a budget amendment. It will have a disproportionate impact on those on low incomes and without access to a car. It could lead to an increase in fly-tipping. At present the service is breaking even so the income expected would initially be modest	18	10
	Garden Waste	326	(154)	0.0	Market and extend Garden Waste Collection Service and increase fees. There is a risk that this becomes a mandatory service under the Environment Act but not confirmed yet and if so will be likely to attract 'new burdens' funding.	19	125
	Trade Waste	534	(111)	7.0
	CityClean Management	230	230	5.0	Service has been significantly delayered - no further opportunities for savings at present.
	CityClean Enforcement Contracts	334	0	12.0	Income generating service that recovers costs.
	CityClean Bin & Box Service	259	259	8.0	No saving opportunity identified.
City Parks		4,654	4,148	133.5
	Parking				Remove ring fence from parking schemes, increase parking charges to align to on street parking. Will require TRO process. Has been proposed and rejected several times at committee but the council's current financial challenges are far more severe.	20	100
	Sports				No saving opportunity identified.
	Parks Buildings				No saving opportunity identified.
	Allotments				Increase fees to achieve full cost recovery (i.e. remove subsidy) and reduce void turnaround times. Work needs to be done on calculating detailed fee implications for consideration by committee.	21	45
	Arboriculture				No saving opportunity identified.
	Operations				No saving opportunity identified.
Fleet	Workshop	2,726	2,612	22.0	Income from commercial activity - to be defined and subject to a business case. Requires services changes and consultation with staff and sufficient space in the yard and workshop.		40
CEM Strategy and Service Improvement	Projects				Fund Environmental Services Improvement Co-ordinator post from income from environmental enforcement fines - this is possible under the Environment Act requirements		35
	Projects	1,241	1,119	32.0	Fund one Project Officer from income from Environmental Enforcement fines - there is sufficient work in the team to align with Environment Act that this can be for environmental improvement projects only. There is a risk that insufficient income from fines is raised.		42
Waste PFI	Waste PFI (saving will be shown in Waste PFI and not revenue budgets)	15,810	15,090		Introduce charging at the Hove Waste & Recycling Service for certain materials - a consultation was completed which was not in favour but there is sound rationale and the council's financial challenges are severe. Risk: The government may ultimately consider legislating against this but no move to do so yet.	22	80
City Environmental Management Total		38,383	35,384	559			777
CITY DEVELOPMENT & REGENERATION
	AD City Planning
	Head of City Regen	87	87	0.7
	Planning	2839	-55	51.1	Review Support Team resources, including deleting a vacant post.		28
					Income and savings from moving Street Naming and Numbering into the Planning Team and introducing charging in line with most other local authorities.		15
					Delete a vacant Assistant/Planning Officer post - risk is loss of capacity to carry out Development Management work.		40
	Building Control				No saving opportunity identified.
	Business Development & Customer Services	550	540	15.3	No saving opportunity identified.
	Major Projects	319	252	5.9	No saving opportunity identified.
	Planning Policy Major Projects	735	723	11.2	No saving opportunity identified.
	International & Sustainability	906	886	9.5	Rationalise existing funding and restructure International & Sustainability and Economic Development teams to focus on core corporate priorities. Core elements of the work programme can be delivered with 23/24 budget reductions with no impact on staffing levels within the team.		100
	International and Sustainability Team				End membership of Eurocities. Risk: Reduced status and visibility on a global level. Need to check on unexpected impacts (activities the council has signed up to and cannot now do), less access to learning and funding opportunities.		15
	Regen and Major Projects				Increase target for capitalisation of project support at year end Risk: Can create an in-year budget pressure if there are not projects to capitalise against.		30
	Economic Development	620	478	6.5	No saving opportunity identified.
	Director - EEC	221	221	2.0
City Development & Regeneration Total		6,277	3,132	102			228
CULTURE, TOURISM & SPORT
Venues	Brighton Centre	2,367	(797.0)	39.7	Introduce a £1.50 Facility Fee on all ticket sales at the Brighton Centre. The Brighton Centre sells in the region of 80,000 tickets p.a. Ticketmaster would take an inside commission of approximately 12.5% on each pound and PRS at 4.2% would be payable to the Performing Rights Society and VAT. Approximately £0.075m additional income could be achievable based on 80,000 tickets sold after VAT, PRS and Ticketmaster commission. Impact: could affect demand for events.	23	75
Venues	Brighton Centre				Reduction in subvention to the Brighton Centre. Impact on the bottom line of the Brighton Centre, meaning the shortfall will have to be made up through additional commercial activity or savings on additional expenditure budgets. Potential reduction in service quality and damage to relationship with city partners and businesses	23	66
Heritage & Archives	RPMT & The Keep	1,728	1,708	0.0	No saving opportunity identified. Contractual commitments.
Tourism & Marketing	VisitBrighton	2,067	1,676	9.5	Stop the work of Visitor Services. •Loss of 14 official Visitor Information Points (VIPs) across the city. •Loss of direct contact with visitor enquiries. •Loss of the VisitBrighton volunteer Greeter Scheme. •Loss of the VisitBrighton City Champions Programme. •1 FTE post deleted.	24	32
Arts	Brighton Dome & Festival contract sum plus arts	2,117	2,117	5.0	No saving opportunity identified. Contractual commitments.
Sports & Leisure	Leisure Facilities Management	1,238	1,107	4.0	No saving opportunity identified. Contractual commitments.
Sport & Leisure	Seafront (inc. Bandstand, Seafront & Misc Resort Properties)	1,012	(1,590)	17.5	No saving opportunity identified
Sport & Leisure	Seafront Services				Seafront rent review. Impact: Cumulative pressure on businesses alongside other rising costs.	25	40
Sport and Leisure	Seafront services				Charge 10% fee on sale of a beach hut. Impact: Likely to be unpopular with beach hut owners who currently pay nominal fees.	26	40
Sport & Leisure	Volks Railway	341	77	8.5	No saving opportunity identified
Sport & Leisure	Outdoor Events	275	(145)	3.0	Make better use of small activation spaces - put together a programme and promote opportunities - to generate more income.		50
Sport & Leisure	Outdoor Events				Introduce £1.50 facility fee on outdoor events	27	20
Culture, Tourism & Sport Total		11,145	4,153	87.3			323
PROPERTY
	Estates	3,799	(6,434)	7.57	Increased income for Lyndean House, Tenancy agreed (though break clauses on other tenancies and new lease includes capped service charge). Risk: Letting does not complete.		60
					Increase in rent from commercial portfolio through letting of vacant units at New England House, Hove Technology Centre, Phoenix House, Cranbourne St.  Risk: no lettings forthcoming.		50
					Vacate Business Continuity suite New England House. Risk: Service unable to relocate, unit not relet.		40
					Vacate 3^rd & 4^th floors of Barts House (part year effect in 2023/24, remaining part year effect in 2024/25). Add Floor 2 in 2025/26 (PYE) and Floor 1 in 2026/27 (PYE). Appoint property specialist to relet, combined rent, service charge, running cost and business rate saving, 6 months’ rent-free period.  Risk: market led, depends on market response out of our control; negotiations take longer than expected; longer rent-free period required; or more investment required to enable separation of letting.		175
	Facilities Management & Building Services	3,103	3,002	49.43	Invest to save - digitise Property Helpdesk function with a new Computer Aided Facilities Management system, to align with the finance system. Corporate Landlord Audit recommendation.                 Risk: Increased costs due to market increases in software. System does not align with our current ICT platforms and finance system.		30
	Building Surveying Maintenance & Utilities Management                                             Energy & Water	4,335	4,327	3.00	Phase 2,3,& 4 solar Installation of solar PVs on poor performing operational portfolio. Risk: Delays in installation due to supply issues, increase in material costs.		28
	Building Surveying Maintenance & Utilities Management                                             Energy & Water				Energy Audits. Carbon Neutral funded operational buildings pipeline of projects to be identified as spend to save projects. Risk: supply of materials and increased construction costs. Quickest achievable payback is expected to be 3-5 years so impact minimal until 2026/27.		20
	Property - other budgets	411	314	44.08	No savings opportunities identified - mainly contractual commitments.
Property Total		11,648	1,209	104.1			403
Economy, Environment & Culture Total		108,070	37,069	1,078.8			3,564

Budget Strategy 2023-24

Housing, Neighbourhoods & Communities Directorate

Services and Responsibilities

The HNC Directorate includes the following services:

· Housing (Council housing management, repairs and investment, Housing Supply, Private Sector Housing, Temporary Accommodation and Homelessness, Travellers)

· Libraries and information services

· Safer Communities (Environmental Health, Licensing, Trading Standards, Emergency Planning, Prevent, ASB and Casework team and Domestic Violence services, Field Officers)

· Communities, Equalities & Third Sector

The directorate focuses on the issues affecting housing, neighbourhoods and communities, aiming to be a landlord of choice, develop closer and better relationship with communities, drive improvement in customer satisfaction and develop the council’s working with public service partners. This includes delivering a step change in partnership working with the third sector and enhancements in volunteering opportunities. In addition to the General Fund activities, much of the housing- related tenancy functions are funded by the ring-fenced Housing Revenue Account.

The directorate has responsibility for:

· Delivering landlord services to council housing residents and improving the quality, sustainability and safety of council homes.;

· Increasing housing supply, supporting provision of 800 additional council homes and development of 700 other new affordable homes.

· Improving the quality of private rented homes and delivering housing adaptations to help people live independently;

· Providing advice and support to reduce homelessness, and providing temporary accommodation

· Delivering statutory library services across the city and developing libraries as neighbourhood hubs;

· Closer engagement with local communities in the co-production of neighbourhood focused enforcement services;

· Leading the council’s ‘Prevent’ agenda; Leading on the Council’s approach to anti-social behaviour and tackling domestic abuse

·  Leading the equalities and inclusion agenda for the council ensuring fair and equitable services, leadership and employment;

· Improving customer satisfaction, complaints resolution and neighbourhood well-being across council services;

· Deepening the understanding across all services of city demographics and the practical measures to address communities of interest and neighbourhoods in need;

· Since 1 April 2020 the Council has also been directly delivering the council housing Repairs & Maintenance Service.

Service Context

Housing

Housing affordability is a major issue in the city, with Brighton & Hove becoming increasingly unaffordable for a significant proportion of the population, in particular those at risk of, or experiencing homelessness.

There are currently more than 17,900 social rented properties in the city. Council housing stock has fallen by more than 700 properties in the last 10 years but the council remains the largest landlord.

· Housing sees approximately 4,000 homeless households each year who need help with housing. Early intervention and prevention work is reducing levels of homelessness however demand for assistance for homeless households remains high in the current year;

· Numbers of households in temporary accommodation is high but reducing slowly

· Currently license 3,710 Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) across the city;

· The Private Sector Housing team received 2239 Requests for Assistance during the first half of 2022/23;

· A total of 497 homes are projected for completion between April 2019 and March 2023, including 343 already completed.

· Specialist housing provision includes a commitment to treble Housing First units for homeless people with complex needs

· We continue to work toward our target of bringing over 160 empty private sector homes back into use each year;

· Landlord to approximately 11,500 council tenants and 2,900 leaseholders;

Annual HRA rents and service charges of £63.9m per year; capital programme of around £29.8m a year improving homes; let approx. 600 homes (over 50 per month), proposed investment pipeline of £270m investment in new homes over the next three years to 2025/26 the majority of which requires committee approval; average of over 2,000 repairs per month / 66 repairs every calendar day in normal circumstances

Libraries & Information Services

The Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 requires Local Authorities to deliver a public library service which is a ‘comprehensive and efficient’ service for all persons in the area who want to make use of it, to promote this service, and to lend books and other written materials free of charge.

There are 5 essential requirements for a successful library service in Brighton & Hove – attractive, welcoming spaces; support from trained and dedicated professional staff and volunteers; quality book stock; accessible IT; and a programme of activities and events for existing and new customers. 

· Network of 14 libraries across the city

· 93% of users tell us our library services are excellent or good

· On target for nearly 1 million visits to libraries 2022-23. Last year achieved 680,072 visits. Pre Covid achieved 1.4 million visits.

· On target for over 1 million items loaned 2022-23.  Last year lent 952,963 items, close to pre-Covid levels. 

· On target for 1.3 million visits to library web pages 2022-23

· 73% of all library transactions last year were online (i.e., joining, reservations and renewals)

· Volunteers contributed 3,125 volunteer hours in 2021-22, and an increase to over 5,000 hours is expected 2022-23.

· An expected 21,000 people will take part in libraries events or outreach activities in 2022-23

· BIPC (Business and Intellectual Property Centre) Sussex has worked to deliver advice and information to businesses: it supported 1,083 businesses in 2021/2022 (exceeding the target of 500).

Safer Communities

Safer communities provides a broad range of services including environmental health and protection, licensing and trading standards, food safety services and emergency planning as well as services to directly support the community safety plan such as violence against women and girls services, anti-social behaviour casework, and the government’s Prevent and Channel programmes.

· Over 85% of the 3,200 food businesses in the city rated 3 or above on the national Food Hygiene Rating Scheme;

· The Field Officer team dealt with more than 2800 jobs between January and October 2022;

· Community Safety Casework Team, Anti-Social Behaviour and hate incidents –533 initial reports and enquiries dealt with between January and October 2022;

• 80% of people affected by domestic violence and abuse felt safe upon leaving refuge
• 1,400 premises licensed venues and 278 gambling premises licensed in the city. 1200 licensed taxi drivers. 580 Hackney Carriage and 370 private hire vehicles licensed;

· 2323 noise complaints including both domestic and commercial requiring investigation between January and October 2022.

· Obtained £51,000 worth of refunds and compensation for vulnerable consumers between April and September 2022

Communities, Equalities & Third Sector (CETS)

This team provides services including community engagement and collaboration, that strengthens communities, leads on the council’s equality duties and provides support to achieve a more sustainable, efficient and effective community and voluntary sector to deliver council priorities.

• Supporting activities that bring people and communities together to promote mutual understanding
• Working alongside communities on what matters to them and to increase resident involvement in housing services
• Increasing participation by using neighbourhood action plans and ward budgets as building blocks for engagement
• Continuing to invest in a strong and independent voluntary and community sector through awards of three-year grant through the Third Sector Commission and the Communities Fund
• Supporting community activities and festivals focussed on sports, arts and science, bringing people together for the benefit of their neighbourhood and the city through grant awards to CVS groups
• Taking a leading role in increasing equality and inclusion in the council and across the city
• Developing strategies to improve equalities outcomes across the Council’s services
• Improve access to all parts of our city and our services for people with physical, sensory and learning disabilities; supporting disabled people into work, tackle discrimination and disability hate crime, and improve access to learning and leisure activities.
• Being a proud City of Sanctuary and continuing to play our part in the international refugee crisis

Budget Strategy

The key areas of action for the Housing service as outlined in the Corporate Plan (2020/23), a City to call home, are:

• Reduce homelessness & rough sleeping
• Provide genuinely affordable homes & increase housing supply
• Improve private rented housing
• Improve council housing
• Make better use of existing housing capacity
  
  

The Council’s Housing Revenue Account (HRA) comprises rental and service charge income from our tenants and leaseholders and funds our landlord services. This includes both capital investment in improving the housing stock and providing much-needed new affordable housing. The HRA Capital Investment Programme for 2022/23 – 2024/25 includes proposals to invest £16.057m specifically for sustainability and carbon reduction measures.

The Housing General Fund budget is under pressure because of the level of homelessness demand and the rising costs of rented properties in the City impacting both on the availability of affordable homes and the length of time households stay in TA. There is also a need to improve the quality of housing in the private sector and in particular sustainability and work to support carbon reduction. Budget priorities align with the projects and requirements of the agreed Housing Committee Work Plan.

For Libraries the implementation of the Libraries Strategy 2022-25, in particular the immediate priorities of increasing library usage, increasing income, and developing skills and confidence of staff and volunteers. 

Libraries have already extensively modernised, reducing costs significantly while increasing accessibility for the public particularly though developing Libraries Extra unstaffed access. A large proportion of the budget is linked to the grant funded PFI scheme which benefits from significant PFI grant funding and where savings have already been achieved. The service will continue to look at how costs can be kept down without adversely affecting services through use of new technologies. Income sources associated with use of additional library building services have been impacted by the required closure of public-facing services through the pandemic.

The Jubilee Library PFI contract supports library revenue budgets because it attracts a government grant of £1.505M which effectively funds services across the city. A comprehensive external review of this was carried out in 2018 to ensure that it continued to deliver value for money. Jubilee Library, which is the fourth most visited public library in the country (CIPFA data 2019/20) also attracts a large amount of income which further supports library services across the city.

The bulk of the budget in Safer Communities is linked to statutory functions to provide a wide range of Environmental health and regulatory services.  A new Community Safety Strategy was approved in September 2020 with a focus on early action to prevent crime and disorder, issues that have the biggest impact on people, reducing fear crime and meeting victims’ needs. The service has been under severe pressure prioritising COVID enforcement work in 2020/21 and 2021/22 and has had to adapt to new demands and develop different approaches to keeping the city safe. There is now a backlog of key tasks so the strategy will be focussed around more efficient and effective working whilst both catching up on the work delayed and continuing to provide the full range of both statutory and non-statutory functions as required by the Council.

CETS are focussed on the impact of Covid-19 on the community and voluntary sector with a rise in demand on services both in terms of number of and the increasing complexity of need of their beneficiaries, combined with challenging fundraising and income generation climate. Inequality issues have been exacerbated during the last year and there are a range of specific and complex impacts for communities . There is a need to respond by making more progress in bridging equality gaps with a particular focus on the concerns of BAME residents and making the city a more accessible place. 

Areas of focus for savings

Housing : Given the on-going pressures in homelessness services the focus is on improving homeless prevention and throughput to reduce overall numbers and the length of stay for households in temporary accommodation (TA) and in particular in emergency accommodation. The savings proposals aim to reduce the use of block booked emergency accommodation.

The review of our TA services including a review of income collection, voids turnaround, procurement, management of lettings etc, as well as work to increase the number of Council-owned TA units, is now part of a wider end to end Homelessness Transformation Programme encompassing review of the wider service to develop better systems, processes, policies and structures to improve efficiency and services to users. We will progress a review of the arrangements with Seaside Homes to develop more cost effective ways of providing temporary housing.

The planned review of Allocations Policy next year also provides the opportunity to consider options that would reduce the use of TA. More immediately we will review how the Council can better support rough sleepers reflecting the aims of the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping strategy, learning from the COVID-19 emergency housing programme and consequent budget pressures.

Council Housing – HRA: The HRA budget aims to balance the priorities of the council and its tenants and leaseholders and reflects a range of council policies and programmes on customer service, repairs and planned maintenance, capital investment in housing and engagement.

Libraries: The immediate focus for savings is on efficiencies that will not adversely impact the services available across the extensive network of libraries in the city. Developing the Libraries Strategy has provided a framework for future funding decisions, for instance where a library is not well used by the local community, consideration will be given to whether moving services to a nearby library or moving the library to a more accessible location for the public might better meet the needs of that community.

Safer Communities: Non-statutory services can provide savings but are closely linked to key Council priorities particularly in delivering the Community Safety Partnership strategy. A review of some of the non-statutory regulatory functions has identified some potential savings.  There are some limited opportunities for efficiency savings and improvement to some income streams not limited by regulation or linked to economic recovery that will be reviewed.

Communities, Equalities & Third Sector: The majority of budgets in the service are associated with support to and commissioning of the third sector in the city and the wide range of services they provide.  However, this is discretionary spend and therefore savings in these budgets could be achieved. There are limited opportunities for efficiency savings.

Investment in services

Investment in Housing needs services will be needed to improve homelessness prevention, manage the TA service, identify move on accommodation and speed up moves within the housing stock to improve the customer journey and save money through more efficient use of the TA and permanent housing stock. Some of the changes required are being identified through the Homelessness Transformation Programme where investment has already started to have a significant impact on overall expenditure.

The Housing service requires resources to develop a new housing strategy (now 2 years overdue) and develop associated strategies, plans and policies to ensure services are integrated and corporate goals are achieved. A current  housing strategy is a government expectation and prerequisite for new policy initiatives such as PRS licensing schemes.

A strategy to improve, integrate and rationalise IT systems across housing is vital to meet services challenges including delivery of better repairs and maintenance services, transformed homelessness services and an efficient housing allocations service. This is being developed following an external review and will require investment over the next few years.

It will be important to align capital investment in new accommodation for TA use with a strategic approach to the TA placements and management functions and in the longer term, the strategic approach to providing new permanent homes. Investment to increase the TA stock directly managed or accessed by the Council has the potential to provide cost savings, through reducing emergency accommodation costs.

Investment in IT to automate systems for licensing may provide opportunities for future savings in Safer Communities services.  Additional investment to coordinate work to deal with unauthorised encampments across the city would reduce costs and delays in dealing with this problem. An initial pilot has proved worthwhile and should be continued and expanded.

Investment in the Emergency planning may be required as with fewer than 2 FTE there are increasing demands, for instance with both summer and winter preparedness planning, more severe weather crises, a growing number of threatened health emergencies (Covid 19, Monkey pox, avian flu) increased business continuity planning  requirements and wider resilience activities.

Investing in Library community spaces would both enhance the community hub role of the city’s extensive library network and increase rental income generation potential. 

Options  for investing in CETS activities include:

· Building Brighton and Hove’s reputation as a giving city by launch of Brighton & Hove Crowdfunding platform;

· Continuing to invest in a strong and independent voluntary and community sector through awards of three-year grant through the Third Sector Commission and the Communities Fund;

· Supporting community activities and festivals focussed on sports, arts and science, bringing people together for the benefit of their neighbourhood and the city through grant awards to CVS groups;

· Investing in an independent support services for people who have experienced racial and religiously motivated hate crime.

Supporting the Council’s Priorities 

A City to call home

· Reduce homelessness and rough sleeping.

· Develop strategies and business cases to provide genuinely affordable homes.

· Improve private rented housing quality and sustainability.

· Improve council housing quality and sustainability.

· Make better use of existing housing capacity.

A City Working for All

· Build community wealth

Tackle crime and antisocial behaviour:

· Increase participation in civic and community life through neighbourhood engagement and participatory strategies.

· Develop strategies to address the causes of poverty and its impact on our communities.

· Improve access for disabled people to services and the housing estate.

A Growing and learning city

· Promote lifelong learning and transition into adulthood through support to relevant CVS programmes.

A Sustainable City

· Use capital and revenue investment to support the objective of being a carbon neutral city by 2030 through improving energy efficiency and sustainability of Council Housing, housing developments and private sector housing.

A Heathy and Caring City

· Promote a City Equalities Standard together with our partners to promote fair employment practice to tackle the under representation of people from BME communities and disabled people.

· Taking a leading role in increasing equality and inclusion in the council and across the city’ and ‘challenge inequality in the city and within the council’.

· Supporting the international refugee crisis through driving delivery of the recommendations of the international migrant needs assessment, participation in the global refugee programme and continuing to be an asylum seeker dispersal area.

· Support people to live independently through Emergency and Temporary Housing provision and programmes such as Housing First and other move on support.

Service Area					Savings Detail
Section	Service Area	Gross budget 2022/23	Net budget 2022/23	FTEs 2022/23	Brief Summary of Budget Proposal/Strategy and Risks	EIA No.	Savings Proposals   2023/24
		£'000	£'000	FTE			£'000
HOUSING, NEIGHBOURHOODS & COMMUNITIES
HOUSING GENERAL FUND
Housing Services	Executive Director HNC and Business Support	167	167	1.8	No saving opportunity identified.
Housing Services	Homelessness - Housing Options and Homemove - supporting vulnerable households	3,333	863	67.0	No proposed savings - statutory requirement and budget under pressure due to demand
Housing Strategy & Development	Housing Strategy & Development - enabling & delivering increased housing supply & quality.	234	183	2.6	No saving opportunity identified.
Private Sector Housing (PSH)	Private Sector Housing & Integrated Housing Adaptations Service - improving housing quality in private rented homes, enabling accessibility & supporting independent living across all tenures.	1,426	832	29.5	Reduce budget as a result of efficiencies made by bringing the Home improvement Agency work in-house.	28	70
					Other income/fines opportunities identified.		20
Temporary Accommodation & Allocations	Temporary Accommodation (TA)	26,407	3,642	65.0	Full Year Effect (FYE) of the reductions made in 2022/23, including reduced block-booked Emergency Accommodation (EA) units by 45. Assumes reprovision through spot purchase in 2023/24 with block-booked provision reducing to 344 by 31/12/22. Achieved through achieving quicker 'move-on' to alternative accommodation and 'reconnection'.	29	725
	Temporary Accommodation (TA)				Reduce EA need by 125 blocked-booked properties by 31/10/23. Would leave 244 block-booked units. Reprovision through spot purchasing if required.  Achieved through achieving quicker 'move-on' to alternative accommodation and 'reconnection'.	29	593
	Temporary Accommodation (TA)				Improvement to Void turnaround times. Reduces rent loss and council tax costs	29	70
	Temporary Accommodation (TA)				Improved Income collection. Currently, high level of historic write-off and non-recovery due partly to the pandemic and level of additional provision.	29	90
Rough Sleepers and Housing related Support	Commissioned Services	7,873	5,049	10.0	No saving opportunity identified. High demand service area.
Travellers	Travellers	503	403	4.5	No saving opportunity identified.
Housing General Fund TOTAL		39,943	11,139	180			1,568
LIBRARIES
Libraries	Library PFI	2,558	1,053	0.0	Library Services have delivered £0.334m savings through the PFI and a financial review of the PFI has also recently taken place corporately led externally by CIPFA. Due to inflationary pressures affecting the Affordability Modelling, no further savings are currently possible.
	Library PFI -Government Grant	incl. above	1,505	0.0	The PFI contract is partly covered by a government grant of £1.5m p.a. that is part of the council's settlement funding. The actual net PFI expenditure is £0.971m. It is worth noting that the revenue payments include an element to cover the capital costs of constructing the building. The grant also subsidises library revenue budgets by £0.700m. Therefore no savings can be made from this budget.
	Staffing and operational costs	2,671	2,671	60.0	Reduce staffed opening hours in all community libraries to a maximum of two days a week, running them as Libraries Extra for the other days where this is possible. The staffed days would vary across the city to ensure that there is a library open with staff within a reasonable traveling distance on every day of the week.	30	76
	Income Generation	incl. above	(434)	0.0	There will be a £0.122m estimated shortfall in this year's income and the areas where there were increases last year have shown diminishing returns so the savings have not been met. This needs to be recovered in 2023/24, in addition to the corporate inflationary increase in targets of 3%. Increasing room hire and exhibition charges by 10% will be absorbed by the higher corporate inflation figure added to 2023/24. There is a risk that this rise will not meet the inflationary figure due to pricing being too high for the market.
					Reinstate the children's fines and charges. Fines at a rate of 15p per day, capped at £3.75. Revised income figure based on analysis of current trends in library income.		30
Libraries Total		5,229	4,795	60.0			106
COMMUNITIES, EQUALITIES & THIRD SECTOR
Communities	Communities, Equalities and Third Sector (CETS) Development staffing and operational budget	683	383	6.9	Staffing is at minimum levels to meet demands.
	Communities and Third Sector Development Commission	1,966	1,771	0.0	No proposed savings
	Communities Fund	346	346	0.0	No proposed savings
	Equality & Cohesion	310	310	5.9	Staffing is at minimum levels to meet demands.
	Healthwatch	179	179	0.0	Commissioned service - no saving opportunity.
Communities, Equalities & Third Sector Total		3,484	2,989	12.8			0
SAFER COMMUNITIES
Environmental Health & Licensing	Environmental Health & Licensing	1,348	500	28.8	Increase discretionary licensing fees by 6% in line with cost increases (linked to staffing costs).	31	13
					Reduction in staffing costs with reduced hours	31	10
	Environmental Protection	392	384	8.8	Staffing is at minimum levels to meet statutory requirements.
	Regulatory Services	388	323	8.0	A service redesign of Regulatory Services (Field Officers) could achieve a small saving through reprioritising work and advisory support.	31	63
	Pest Control	83	(5)	3.0	No proposed savings
Trading Standards	Trading Standards	458	449	7.0	Staffing is at minimum levels to meet statutory requirements.
Civil Contingencies	Civil Contingencies	133	133	1.8	Staffing is at minimum levels to meet statutory requirements.
Community Safety	Reducing Violence against Women and Girls Commissioning. (VAWG)	1,290	950	4.7	High demand service area including commissioned services.
	Casework Team	408	328	11.0	High demand service area - no saving opportunity identified.
Safer Communities Total		4,500	3,062	73.1			86
Housing, Neighbourhoods & Communities Total		53,156	21,985	326.3			1,760

Budget Strategy 2023-24

Governance, People & Resources (GPR)

Service Context

The Governance, People & Resources (GPR) Directorate provides a full range of support service functions together with front line services including local land charges, welfare support, housing benefit administration, and tax collection and administration.

The GPR Directorate’s vision is to enable a well-run council and its mission is to: ‘Provide trusted services to all customers, councillors and staff to enable the council to deliver strategic and operational priorities through optimising resources and ensuring robust governance.’

Support Service functions operate at both a service level, providing essential business support to front-line services, and at a corporate level supporting the council to meet statutory obligations, maintain strong governance and stewardship, and develop effective strategic plans and tactics. This means operating as a ‘Strategic Business Partner’ to the council and its service directorates and supporting them through complex changes by being involved in the development of options and their evaluation, through to decision-making.

Key metrics for the Governance, People & Resources Directorate are as follows:

Corporate Communications

· Delivers campaigns, marketing, public relations, film-making and copywriting that turn complex messages into impactful content aimed at target audiences, including emergency and crisis communications through a range of media including digital and social media platforms.

· Internal communications builds and supports cultural change through a network of ambassadors and media (e.g. intranet) to amplify messages from the inside out.

· Media relations support for staff and councillors by acting as a central hub for proactive and reactive media relations.

· Graphic design and branding to manage the council’s identity so that services are clearly recognized, creating powerful, visual, branded content that stands out.

· Consultation, engagement and public affairs. Designing interactive and creative processes to gather an understanding of peoples’ needs and views.

Democratic Services, the Civic Office and Electoral Services

· Co-ordination and administration of a transparent, legally compliant, democratic decision-making process.

· The co-ordination of support to Members including training & development.

· Administering of School Appeals, which can range from 300-500+ in a year.

· The Members’ Allowances Scheme and support to the Independent Remuneration Panel.

· The Civic Office co-ordinates support to the Mayor, ensuring that all Civic engagements are managed effectively.

· Electoral Services provide end-to-end management of local elections with a primary aim of delivering safe and compliant elections.

Finance & Internal Audit and Counter Fraud

• Finance oversees the delivery of the council’s Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) and annual budget setting process and delivers the Targeted Budget Management (TBM) process in order to monitor budgets on an ongoing basis. It also produces the annual Financial Statements and supports the external audit process.
• Finance supports the five service directorates including over 250 budget managers, as well as 66 schools, and provides Treasury Management for over £200m cash balances and investments and over £0.5 billion money market transactions, and annually procures and negotiates over £1.8 billion insurance cover through premiums (£1.6m p.a.).
• Internal Audit & Counter Fraud (an Orbis Partnership service) provides over 1,000 audit days for circa 50 internal audit reviews providing assurance to management and the authority. It is a highly integrated Orbis function that includes specialist support in areas of counter fraud and IT audit.

Human Resources & Organisational Development (HROD)

· HROD provides services to around 9,000 staff across the council and in schools, including a comprehensive advisory, development and policy service to 750 people managers and 66 schools in the City;

· Delivery of ‘Our People Promise’ which includes the council’s development offer for staff, and aims to help improve the council’s performance;

· Health & Safety advice and support for all council services and schools;

· Provides support for developing and managing industrial relations including pay and policy negotiations;

· Provides support for developing and managing HR policies and processes including supporting grievance, capability and absence management procedures.

IT & Digital (Orbis Partnership Service)

· Maintains and supports the mission critical underpinning IT infrastructure used to run back-office services and deliver services to residents.  This includes the management and procurement of devices (e.g., laptops), software (e.g., Microsoft O365), network connectivity, telephony (mobile, contact centre and office), data centre and data storage services, Always on VPN (AOVPN remote access) and other contracts;

· Supports the day-to-day provision use of hardware, software and IT applications;

· Provides cyber resilience through the procurement and use of cyber monitoring and filtering technologies, as well, as the provision of secure remote connection that enables remote access to council systems and data;

· Provides traded IT support and training services to schools in the City of Brighton and Hove;

· Delivers projects and programmes to support the adoption of new IT and digital capabilities to enable service improvement and improved resident experience;

· Support the council’s adherence to IT and data regulation and compliance standards including GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), FOI (Freedom of Information) and PSN (Public Service Network) code of connection services.

Legal Services

· Provides legal advice and representation across all of the council’s functions as well as the Monitoring Officer function;

· Supports adult and children’s safeguarding functions, where there is a significant pressure nationally in relation to the volume of Court proceedings;

· Supports the good governance of the council through advice to committees and manages the investigation and reporting of complaints under the Code of Conduct for Members;

· Achieves efficiencies through membership of the Orbis Public Law collaborative partnership.

Performance, Improvement and Programme Management

· Drives continuous improvement and efficiency across the organisation to support strong corporate governance, minimise the adverse impact of financial challenges on customers, avoid costly mistakes and better protect the council’s reputation.

· Manages the statutory responsibility for ensuring objective resolution of customer dissatisfaction and takes the strategic lead in improving customer experience, as well as managing the Information Rights service.

· Processes approx. 2,000 Stage 1 complaints and 1,000 compliments, and investigates approx. 200 Stage 2 complaints and assists the Ombudsman with approx. 100 cases.

· The Performance Team drives the corporate and directorate planning and monitoring processes covering 6 Directorate Plans and 69 Corporate Key Performance Indicators.

· Manages the council’s Risk & Opportunity Framework which currently includes 13 strategic and 25 directorate level risks.

· Production of the statutory Annual Governance Statement (AGS) evidencing effectiveness of corporate governance.

· Manages and co-ordinates support for 20 to 30 corporate modernisation projects and programmes across the organisation.

Policy & Partnerships

· Leads on the creation and implementation of the Corporate Plan.

· Plays a key role in developing, guiding and internally promoting key strategies such as the Economic Strategy, Transport strategy, and Carbon Neutral 2030 strategy.

· Acts as a liaison between the Administration and officers to drive policy development on behalf of the council’s Administration and provides policy development support to directorates, for example, through the Corporate Policy Network.

· Enables city-wide engagement with key partners through relationship management and partnership development support.

· The Scrutiny function leads on the statutory health scrutiny function (HOSC) and currently provides business management support to the Health & Well-Being Board.

Procurement (Orbis Partnership service)

• Supports procurement of goods and services to the value of approximately £300m per annum;
• Supports circa 250 contract managers together with Legal Services including the provision of targeted contract management support for higher risk contracts;
• Supports the development of procurement strategy and policies including sustainability, social value and modern slavery;
• Manages and authorises waivers of Contract Standing Orders;
• Supports the Member Procurement Advisory Board to scrutinise significant procurements and consider procurement route options.

Welfare, Revenues & Business Support (WRBS)

The Welfare, Revenues & Business Support (WRBS) service has a wide range of internal and external customers, including many vulnerable and low income households, but is also of strategic importance.

· Provision of strategic support and policy development for responding to welfare reforms, as well as direct delivery of local welfare support, assistance and advice;

· Collection and recovery of £164m Council Tax (and Council Tax Reduction Scheme);

· Collection and recovery of £104m Business Rate income;

· Processing of £113m Housing Benefit claims and managing the transfer to Universal Credit;

· Collection and recovery of Housing Benefit Overpayments;

· Developing and improving the council’s Corporate Debt Policy and approach to debt recovery and collection, with a greater focus on pre-enforcement support and advice, debt prevention, welfare rights and financial inclusion;

· Collection and recovery of Adult Social Care and Sundry Debts (Business and Personal) (Accounts Receivable);

· Payroll services to over 9,000 staff across the council, schools and other external organisations;

· Processing over 200,000 payments to the council’s suppliers and providers (Accounts Payable);

· Provision of banking, purchasing card and urgent payment services and the management of corporate financial information systems.

Many of the services above are also involved in providing a wide range of traded or contracted services to schools, South Downs National Park Authority, the Coast to Capital LEP, Worthing & Adur Councils, East Sussex Fire & Rescue, Horsham District Council and others which generate significant incomes.

Budget Strategy

Direction of Travel

The directorate’s budget strategy will continue to adopt the strategies below in an attempt to meet an increasing volume and complexity of demands efficiently and effectively. However, this is increasingly requiring effective demand management, which is generally managed through prioritisation and risk stratification.

· The WRBS service brought together the Revenues & Benefits service with the Business Operations service following the latter’s withdrawal from the Orbis Partnership on 31 March 2022. The bringing together of the services under WRBS has progressed reasonably well but current recruitment and retention issues are creating an additional challenge together with the enormous additional demands placed on the service including distributing Energy Boost payments, managing distribution of the Household Support Fund and being the primary hub supporting hardship support and the Homes for Ukrainians programme.

· All services continue to explore further opportunities for collaboration, innovation and efficiency through improved use of technology, closer working with other directorates to design improved customer journeys and experience, and exploring opportunities to bring services or skills together;

· Similarly, continued implementation of systems developments, automation and digital services to improve customer service and deliver potential efficiencies. In particular, GPR has embarked on a major procurement process for the replacement of the council’s Corporate Information Systems (e.g. HR, Finance, Payroll, Procurement) which is expected to be concluded in spring 2023 with implementation of new systems by April 2025;

· Continued investment in enhanced Business Partnering skills and ongoing realignment of the workforce skill mix to support the aim of being an effective Strategic Business Partner to the organisation;

· Utilising external peer challenge and reviews (at corporate and service level) to assist the authority in identifying strategic opportunities for improvement;

· To deliver debt prevention, welfare reform and cost of living responses that minimise the financial and administrative costs of supporting financial vulnerable households across all council services.

· Continued focus on maintaining and, where possible, increasing external income streams including renewal of contracts to existing customers including South Downs National Park and East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service alongside the pursuit of new income streams from other authorities. However, this must not be at the expense of service quality to the council and its residents and customers;

· Investing in a new case management system to secure ongoing ability to work remotely, efficiently and sustainably, and;

· Recruiting new trainees, apprentices and internships to mitigate the challenges of recruiting qualified professional staff.

Areas of Focus for Savings

All Services: Services continue to explore opportunities to generate income and contribute to corporate overheads. Services are already provided to Adur & Worthing Councils, South Downs National Park, schools and other authorities. Bidding for new work has to carefully balance the value of the income generated with the potential impact on capacity to support the council.

Corporate Communications: A service review and redesign following appointment of an Assistant Director Policy & Communications will focus on maintaining a high quality of communications whilst supporting the delivery of the council’s most important strategic priorities. This includes improving portfolio alignment with corporate and directorate plans to allow better prioritisation and to help directorates to consider communications needs when drafting their Directorate and Service plans

Democratic Services and Civic Office: Ongoing redesign for the Democratic and Civic Offices to increase efficiencies and reduce administrative costs, including less reliance on paper and more effective use of electronic agendas and the report management system.

Procurement: This Orbis service is implementing a modernisation programme aimed at stratifying (banding) support to procurement projects based on size, complexity and risk as well as creating specialist services to improve efficiency and collaboration including a central policy team, the Sourcing Solutions team managing lower value commissions, and a Procurement Hub able to flex resources to support customer departments. Additional contract management resources were previously approved and provide targeted support to contract managers for higher risk contracts and develop the procurement approach to Community Wealth Building.

Welfare, Revenues & Business Support (WRBS): Continued roll-out of the Universal Credit caseload to the DWP and continued investment in digital customer developments and automation are required to support the achievement of efficiencies in this service. The impact of the cost of living has been very significant on the service which has administered vouchers and hardship funds for the city funded from Household Support Fund tranches, which will continue in 2023/24.

The withdrawal of the former Business Operations service from the Orbis Partnership on 1 April 2022 created a significant cost pressure due to the disaggregation of some integrated posts and services, and the need to address unachieved Orbis Business Plan savings. This budget pressure will need to be addressed in the 2023/24 General Fund budget but in the longer term, bringing together Business Operations and Revenues & Benefits services is expected to generate efficiencies through improved use of digital and application technologies to reduce costs and improve customer service over the medium term, particularly with the implementation of replacement corporate systems in 2025.

IT&D: Further contractual savings are sought in all re-procurements undertaken by IT&D across the Orbis Partnership. Opportunities for joint procurement and licensing are explored and waivers are used judiciously to align contract expiries to facilitate this. However, the historic under-investment in IT infrastructure, devices, network upgrades and access security have added significantly to IT&D costs while there is a need to continue investment in digital developments and platforms, the wide area network (Link replacement) and major corporate systems. These and other investments require step increases in funding to be provided within the Medium Term Financial Strategy and therefore the aim of the service is to minimise these increases through the actions above.

Legal, Finance and HR Services: These services are under considerable pressure due to the high level of change and business activity across the organisation which is increasing year-on-year driven by growing financial pressures across services, significantly increased industrial relations activity, and new or strengthened legislation requiring legal support and casework. The services will continue to use demand management tactics such as restricting legal involvement to more complex or high risk issues and automating processes wherever possible, stratifying support to more complex or higher risk areas of work, and reducing failure demands (non-valued added processes). There is also continued exploration of opportunities to increase in income from external work but bidding for new work has to carefully balance the value of the income generated with the potential impact on capacity to support the council. These services will also introduce ‘vacancy factors’ recognising historic turnover and recruitment trends.

Performance, Improvement and Programme Management: It is proposed to review the service based on priorities which will enable reduced data insight and governance support.

Policy & Partnerships: Further efficiencies and additional income may be achievable through continued support for H&WB work. Elsewhere, training and development budgets will be reviewed and limited staffing savings may be possible through service/workload redesign.

Areas for Investment

Investment in ‘Our People Promise’ and the supporting development activities and actions are proposed to be maintained in 2023/24 utilising capital receipt flexibilities through the Modernisation Fund. This funding is inclusive of £0.120m that funds the Policy, Pay and Reward team.

As noted earlier, substantial investment in IT&D and the Digital Strategy will be required and this will ultimately require step increases of £0.500m per annum in financing costs and IT&D revenue budgets to be built into the council’s Medium Term Financial Strategy. However, this may be funded through the Modernisation Fund in the short term subject to available recurrent revenue resources. This will cover necessary upgrades to the IT infrastructure, equipment replacement programmes, re-procurement of the Wide Area Network (The Link), funding for the digital development function, and licensing of major application suites (e.g. Office 365).

Expert advisory was commissioned to help the council review and determine the future of its corporate information systems including the Financial System and the HR/Payroll system. The review concluded that the systems (well over 10 years old) are not fit for purpose and that replacement with an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system (highly integrated systems) would provide the best solution and opportunities for efficiencies in future. The procurement of an ERP has started and will be resourced through capital investment, including through to implementation.

The recent decision by Orbis Partners to withdraw Finance, Business Operations and HROD services from the Orbis partnership will require additional investment to re-create sovereign functions in BHCC. The 2023/24 budget includes an estimated £0.700m additional costs due to the disaggregation of integrated services, sharing of unachieved Orbis Business Plan savings, and other losses due to disintegration of management structures, and reduced economies of scale.

Legal Services is struggling to recruit qualified staff into new roles and has been unable to recruit to a number of lawyer roles. Council pay levels, local competition (e.g. the Pensions Regulator) and the availability of remote working, enabling people to take up higher paid roles whilst staying local, are the primary issues. A market supplement is required to avoid the higher cost of locums and ensure a permanently recruited establishment. This is likely to cost approximately £0.350m.

More generally and where appropriate, GPR services will develop business cases for invest-to-save support from the Modernisation Fund where these can help the directorate modernise its services to improve customer satisfaction, improve efficiencies and/or achieve financial savings.

Supporting the Council’s Priorities

GPR services support and facilitate other services to deliver against the 6 corporate priorities and also contribute to the aim of being a well-run council that plans and manages services effectively at both a strategic and operational level. Helping the council to develop robust financial strategies, workforce plans, digital customer strategies, and effective welfare reform responses is critical to maintaining sustainable, financially resilient and accessible council services.

A key determinant of the demands placed on GPR services is therefore the level of change experienced across the organisation. This has been and remains at very high levels due to the cumulative effect of the growing financial challenges in local government requiring ever greater innovation in everything from digital services to corporate debt management to financing strategies that help resources and services go further. This creates a tension between the need to provide cost effective support functions while ensuring that the council and its services have the support to make sound business judgements and decisions that minimise legal, financial, employment, equality, health & safety, governance, internal control and other risks. Evidence of growing risks and poor mitigation of risks, as seen elsewhere, usually leads to reputational issues and ultimately service delivery failure as well as external audit and other scrutiny or challenge. 

The escalation of the cost of living and welfare support are also a major part of the directorate’s work at all levels and are becoming increasingly complex, leading to a fundamental re-think of how to provide debt prevention, and responses to welfare reform and cost of living impacts to maximise their strategic and operational impact. This has become particularly apparent during the pandemic, and now the cost of living situation, which have inevitably exacerbated inequalities but have resulted in a very effective welfare and emergency assistance response supported by the Welfare, Revenues & Business Support service and other professionals.

GPR services underpin the authority’s governance framework, ensuring safe and legally compliant decision-making, as well as maintaining reviewing and improving the council’s internal control environment. Advisory and Business Partnering services within Finance, HR, IT&D and Procurement help the organisation to maximise its use of resources, fully evaluate options, avoid costly fines, mistakes or non-compliance occurrences, and thereby deliver cashable and non-cashable savings or cost-avoidance. Similarly, Programme Management resources ensure effective oversight and delivery of major improvement programmes funded by the Modernisation Fund or Capital Investment.

These services are integral to front line delivery and work best when operating as a trusted Strategic Business Partner as part of both corporate and directorate management teams’ roles in developing strategic responses and solutions for delivery.

A city to call home

· The directorate will play a key role in reviewing potential re-financing options for Seaside Homes as well as supporting financial modelling and financing strategies for a wide range of initiatives including Home Purchase, New Homes for Neighbourhoods, the Housing Joint Venture and other estate regeneration and emergency and temporary accommodation schemes.

A City Working for All

· Through procurement, ensuring that the city council's spending power is used to secure good value for money and, as far as possible with contract regulations and market conditions, to procure local services, and improve sustainability and social value.

· Embed policies and practice concerning Social Value, Community Wealth Building, Sustainability and Modern Slavery across all contracts.

A Stronger City

· The people strategy for the organisation is delivered through ‘Our People Promise’ led by HROD. This programme is designed to ensure we have an engaged and motivated workforce who are able to deliver their best to the city enable all priorities to be supported. As a series of 5 commitments, it underpins HROD’s work in terms of wellbeing, equalities, development, reward and engagement.

· HROD also manages the Fair and Inclusive Action Plan (FIAP) which supports the organisation to become reflective of the community, and to improve the experience of all staff, including embedding the council’s Anti-Racism Strategy and approach in all council policies.

· Actively supporting the corporate aim of diversifying the workforce at all levels, recruiting and retaining staff from all of the city's communities.

· Supporting the organisation to have a reward framework in place that enables successful recruitment and retention of staff while ensuring a fair and transparent system.

· The HROD service takes a lead in managing industrial relations, ensuring issues are dealt with fairly and transparently, and where necessary supporting the resolution of disputes.

· Supporting the organisation to ensure it fulfils its legal and moral health & safety responsibilities to provide a safe working environment where staff are supported to be happy and well.

· Providing a comprehensive learning and development offer that supports employees through from induction to planning for retirement. The offer also supports the culture change of the organisation, and in particular the work to ensure the council is fairer and more inclusive.

A growing and learning city

· The directorate provides a wide range of traded services to schools, from HR and payroll to health & safety advice and support, to help them manage and administer a safe and effective school environment.

· Finance plays a key role in working with the Schools Forum and Schools Block Working Group to develop the annual Schools Budget across the 4 blocks of the Dedicated Schools Grant.

A Sustainable City

· Enable the successful delivery of digital improvement projects and programmes through the co-design and co-delivery of underpinning technologies, platforms and services in IT&D to support services in delivering corporate priorities.

· Develop a scalable and resilient IT&D technical architecture which provides a secure, highly available platform for business services.

· Exploring alternative financing options for low or zero carbon initiatives through the government’s emerging Green Investment proposals as well as local financing options and other viable business cases.

· Assisting in the development of a 5-Year Capital Investment Programme that supports the council’s priorities including Housing, Sustainable Transport and Zero Carbon schemes, Regeneration & Employment, Schools & Learning, and IT & Digital.

A Heathy and Caring City

· Continue to respond to the impact of the cost of living crisis and welfare reforms, including oversight of the council’s welfare and hardship support and assistance, working across services and with CVS partners.

· Identify ways to increase support for those struggling to afford the cost of housing. This will include making full use of discretionary payments and/or distributing government hardship funds as well as supporting the development of new build housing programmes and business cases.

· Continue to work on examining the impacts of energy and food poverty on individuals and communities and co-develop strategies, lobbying tactics, and action plans with partners to assist those living in poverty including providing access to advice and support.

Service Area					Savings Detail
Section	Service Area	Gross budget 2022/23	Net budget 2022/23	FTEs 2022/23	Brief Summary of Budget Proposal/Strategy and Risks	EIA No.	Savings Proposals   2023/24
		£'000	£'000	FTE			£'000
GOVERNANCE, PEOPLE & RESOURCES
POLICY & COMMUNICATIONS
Policy Partnership & Scrutiny	The PPS team runs a Partnership, Policy and Scrutiny service - priorities include setting the city vision and strategy, overseeing strategic cross city partnership working (such as the City Management Board, Brighton & Hove Connected) a well as running thematic partnerships such as the Transport Partnership, Health & Wellbeing Board and the Carbon Neutral Members Working Group and Officers Working Group, in addition to fulfilling the scrutiny function for HOSC.	523	417	9.5	No saving opportunity identified.		0
Chief Executive	Chief Executive and support.	290	290	2.0	No saving opportunity identified.
Communications (inc Graphic Design Team	The Communications team provides advice to all councillors and staff on all communications and public relations issues relating to the council, its services and policies. Functions include: campaigns, marketing and copywriting; internal communications; media relations; graphic design and branding; digital content design; consultation and social media; emergency and crisis communications.	652	636	17.5	The Communications team structure will be reviewed by the Head of Communications & Public relations leading to consultation with staff and trade unions as normal. Risk: Any reductions in the service will reduce the amount of tactical comms and campaign work the team can deliver, and potentially reduce member support.		74
Policy & Communications Total		1,465	1,343	29.0			74
LEGAL & DEMOCRATIC SERVICES
Legal Services		1,794	1,475	33.1	Proposal 0.090m 2023/2024: voluntary reduction in hours in Property and Corporate Law Teams and review of Business Support. Delivery Risk: Reduction in capacity to support FOI/Data Protection work, Property work and Administrative Law work and reduced administrative capacity causing delays and reducing capacity to support more efficient ways of working.		90
Legal Services - children’s & adults		145	105	16.3	Increase in demand, recruitment and retention difficulties and high risk associated with reducing capacity for safeguarding work mean taking savings in this area is not recommended at this time.		0
Democratic & Civic Services		798	705	15.2	Proposal: 2023/2024 Increase income in Democratic Services (£0.010m) and reduce Civic Office support following review of Civic Office (£0.050m) Delivery risk: Review of Civic Office proposals are not approved.		60
Members Allowances		1,043	1,043	0.0	No savings proposed
Legal & Democratic Services Total		3,780	3,328	64.6			150
LIFE EVENTS
Electoral & Land Charges		650	24	11.7	Proposal 23/24: Increase income (LLC) and reduce spend on storage of elections material. Delivery risk: LLC proposed increase in income threatened by potential property market destabilisation; reduction in storage costs may be prevented by an inability to source an alternative storage option.		22
Life Events Total		650	24	11.7			22
CUSTOMER MODERNISATION & PERFORMANCE
Customer and Performance	Corporate Performance team, Customer feedback including handling customer complaints and liaising with LGSCO, Customer experience - working with services across the council to deliver our Customer Promise and vision, Data Governance & insight function.	653	653	11.4	Reduction in staffing for data insight and governance. Straightforward to deliver this saving as a vacant post - however, this is not aligned to the corporate commitment of improving our data maturity and standards.		70
Corporate Programme Management Office	Driving modernisation agenda	23	23	15.0	No savings proposed as no core funding. Team is funded by the Modernisation Fund (capital) to support a wide range of modernisation projects and programmes.
Information Rights Team	Complying with information rights requirements including FOI, SAR, data protection	694	694	13.2	Small potential efficiency opportunity in dealing with information rights cases.		6
Customer Modernisation & Data Total		1,370	1,370	39.6			76
FINANCE
Financial Services	Provides a full range of financial services including the S1551 Chief Finance Officer, Financial Advice (Business Partnering) support to services, Medium-term Financial Planning and Annual Budget Preparation, Treasury Management, Taxation and Insurance services, management accounting, reporting and forecasting (TBM), account maintenance, and completion of statutory government returns and grant claims. It also provides contracted Services to Schools, South Downs National Park Authority, the Coast to Capital LEP and the Housing Joint Venture.	1,904	1,658	42.3	2023/24: Contribution to overheads of £15k from provision of C2C LEP S151 CFO Service. Also, application of a 2% vacancy factor which will be made up of both normal turnover rates and ad hoc changes in hours across the service, contributing £0.035m. Increased charge to HRA for additional financial support not currently charged but this is reliant on the calculation of and interaction with wider Support Service Charges contributing £0.017m. Delivery Risk: The future of LEPs is uncertain and this income may not be achievable in future years if LEPs are dissolved, however, the C2CLEP is building a business model based on a commercially  sustainable basis. If turnover is low, a 2% vacancy factor (or equivalent) may not materialise, creating an in-year pressure.		67
Audit (MOBO)	This budget relates to a number of small items including NAFN and training retained by BHCC. All other Internal Audit budgets are held within Orbis (See 'Contribution to Orbis'.	10	10	0.0	No saving opportunity identified.
Insurance (MOBO)	This budget relates to a number of small items including system licences retained by BHCC. All other Insurance budgets are held within Orbis (See 'Contribution to Orbis'.	10	10	0.0	No saving opportunity identified.
Finance Total		1,924	1,678	42.3			67
PROCUREMENT (MOBO)
Procurement	This budget relates to a number of small items including system licences retained by BHCC. All other Procurement budgets are held within Orbis (See 'Contribution to Orbis'.	(37)	(37)	0.0	No saving opportunity identified.
Procurement (Mobo) Total		(37)	(37)	0.0			0
HR & ORGANISATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Health & Safety and Occupational Health	Provision of competent H&S advice in accordance with legislation, maintaining the councils H&S Policy, Standards & safety management framework Team Safety and undertaking a programme of audit activity to report on assurance. Carrying out incident investigations & reporting to the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) in accordance with legislation	548	548	11.8	Proposal: 2023/24: Deletion of a vacant post with some re-shaping of the remaining posts in the team, including a change in model of delivery away from the Business Partner model. Saving is therefore 'equivalent to' an SO1/2 post which equates to £0.043m to be achieved through a team restructure and a focus of the work on assurance, audit and risk management. Also, implement a vacancy factor of 2% (£0.019m). Delivery risk: Continued high demand for services following Covid, and the outcomes of HSE investigations. Risk mitigated by a focus of the teams activity as stated above. The team are fully staffed, a risk that will be mitigated by vacancy management where possible. Proposal 2024/25 onwards: implementation of a new Incident Management System (see investment ask), and better use of customer access channels through the new Wave. Delivery risk: Less capacity to support managers in managing their risks. Risk will be mitigated to some degree by careful planning, ensuring appropriate training of managers, changing the model of delivery, and further developing the Health & Safety culture of the organisation to ensure ownership for managing risks sits within relevant services.		62
Learning & Organisational Development	Delivery of Organisational Development and training for the organisation and wider social care sector. Supports the organisation to transform and modernise, develop skills for the future workforce and ensure current training and development is delivered to maintain necessary skills	1,253	1,248	12.4	Proposal 2023/24: Implement vacancy factor of 1% and increase the training income target on REO25 by 10K. Approximate vacancy factor of £13k used to make total of £23K. Delivery risk: Team are fully staffed, a risk that will be mitigated by vacancy management where possible.		58
HR Reward, Policy, Strategy, Advisory and Business Partnering	Delivery of the full HR service, including policy changes, advisory services and Business Partnering ensuring the organisation is supported with BAU support, and the development of strategies, plans and actions to develop the workforce of the future and enabling transformation and modernisation	1,462	1,401	34.5	Proposal 2023/24: Implement vacancy factor of 2% and reduce establishment by the 'equivalent of' an SO1/2 role. Change will be implemented by re-focusing the work of the team onto higher level added-value work, and ensuring that appropriate toolkits and guidance are available to managers through the new Wave. Total of £58K.  Delivery risk: Continued high level of demand from managers, and reduced capacity to support the organisation to manage through change, mitigated by prioritising change activity. Team are fully staffed, a risk that will be mitigated by vacancy management where possible.		94
Trades Union Support	Trade Union facility time to support consultation, negotiation and individual case work across the council	342	322	8.0	No proposed savings
Recruitment Team		(38)	(38)	5.8	Service funds itself through charges per recruitment.
HR & Organisational Development (Mobo) Total		3,567	3,481	72.5			214
IT&D (MOBO)
		8,748	8,571	3.4
IT infrastructure and licencing	Provision of pan-council foundation IT services that includes Microsoft services and associated licencing.	N/A	N/A	N/A	2023/24:  Recharge HRA correctly for the Housing proportion of the annual Microsoft Licencing cost. This requires analysis of the licencing charge and development of a model that correctly identifies the Housing Proportion to ensure compliance with HRA regulations. Low risk providing this area of cost recovery is not already included in the HRA recharge.		100
Projects and Programmes	Project delivery of capital schemes that involve resource from all sections of IT&D.	N/A	N/A	N/A	2023/24: Review opportunities to capitalise staff costs against capital schemes. This requires historic analysis of project staff costs associated with capital schemes in order to identify a reasonable assumption of annual staff capitalisation. Low risk providing this cost recovery is compliant with accounting policies and reporting standards.		50
IT Schools Traded Services	Provision of IT services to schools on a traded basis.				No proposed savings
Staffing	Staff Budget				Put in place a 4% staff vacancy factor across the base staff budget this additional factor would create a level of service delivery risk.		200
IT&D (Mobo) Total		8,748	8,571	3.4			350
WELFARE REVENUES & BUSINESS SUPPORT
Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable and Banking teams	Collection and administration of all debts through the corporate debt system. Payments to creditors and suppliers. Administrative support and controls for banking and payments systems within the council.	836	689	24.7	No saving opportunity identified. High demand area where a reduction in support would result in lost income.
Corporate Debt Team	Overseeing and monitoring the overall organisations debt performance. Targeted data analysis, training and intervention to improve performance.	348	348	10.0	No saving opportunity identified. High demand area where a reduction in support would result in lost income.
Payroll & Pensions	Administration of officer renumerations and retired officer renumerations.	230	209	18.4	No saving opportunity identified. Highly pressurised service currently requiring a short term increase in resources.
WRBS Technical Systems teams	Technical Systems support for all WRBS teams including general ledger, creditors, debtors, banking, human resources, payroll, council tax, business rates and housing benefits	1,552	1,552	28.5	No saving opportunity identified. Team manages 3 major corporate systems and will be instrumental to supporting Business Analysts through the design and specification of replacement corporate systems with an ERP solution.
Housing Benefit Administration	Statutory administration of national and local benefit schemes	2,166	2,166	61.0	Proposal: The DWP have stated that households in receipt of Working Age Housing Benefit will be transferred to Universal Credit by the end of 2024/25.  This transfer will represent an estimated reduction in workload of 40% and the proposed saving represents a similar reduction in administrative budget allowing for digital efficiencies.  This is a net figure accounting for a proportional loss of associated Admin grant. There will be some migration of caseload in 2023/24 and this is reflected in a proportionate saving.  However, the main impact is expected to be towards the latter end of 2024/25.  The saving is a proportion of the current administration budget and the exact profile of the saving in terms of posts and grades is yet be determined because it needs to be informed by considered restructuring of the service so it is optimally placed to deal with the residual workload and the benefit/welfare challenges in the future. Delivery Risk: There is a risk that there will be slippage in the DWPs timeframes as before. Although, following the pandemic there appears to be more confidence that the transfer will not be delayed further.  There is a risk in reducing resources too quickly to be able to cope with legacy benefit work. There is a risk that the service will still be under considerable pressure to provide an enhanced level of welfare services in response to national economic pressures and this saving will reduce the capacity to divert resources for this purpose.		75
Council Tax Collection Teams	Statutory collection of council tax income	2,093	1,255	53.5	No saving opportunity identified. High demand area where a reduction in support would result in lost income particularly in the light of economic conditions.
Business Rates Collection Team	Statutory collection of business rates income	302	(263)	7.0	No saving opportunity identified. High demand area where a reduction in support would result in lost income particularly in the light of economic conditions.
Council Tax S13A discounts	Locally funded section 13A council tax discounts awarded for carers relief, difficult to let and exceptional/unexpected situations, such as flooding).	150	150	0.0	No savings proposed
Local Welfare Assistance Schemes	Awards of discretionary benefits and cost of living support schemes to lower income households.	1,726	625	8.0	Critical local welfare response, particularly in current economic conditions.
Welfare Framework	The organisation of local authority response to cost of living and welfare demands. Responding to government monitoring. Data Analysis to enable targeted welfare responses. Provision of resource and linkage to mental health and debt advice aspects of the response.	39	39	2.0	No saving opportunity identified. Analysis of data is essential to understanding need and effectively targeting scarce hardship resources and support.
Welfare Advisory	Specialist advice given to maximising income and claiming and appealing entitlements. Holistic solutions for low-income households.	241	241	6.7	No saving opportunity identified. Service reduces costs to the council by maximising eligible benefits for residents.
Welfare Revenues & Business Support Total		9,683	7,011	219.7			75
CONTRIBUTION TO ORBIS
Contribution to Orbis	The 'Contribution to Orbis' budget effectively refers to the Orbis Operational Budget which covers Internal Audit, Procurement and the Integrated elements of IT&D, as well as Finance 'Centres of Expertise' for Treasury, Taxation and Insurance. The contribution is based on an agreed contribution ration (ACR) as specified in the Inter-Authority Agreement (IAA). There are also Sovereign-held budgets managed by Orbis services on behalf of the partners but where overall control rests with the funding authority (these are known as 'MOBO' budgets).	1,556	1,556	129.6	2023/24: No savings are possible from the Orbis Operational budget in 2023/24 for two main reasons: 1) The services have been restructured over the past two years (Procurement is still in the process) having delivered Orbis Business Plan savings targets in 2019/20, 2020/21 and 2021/22 and there is no immediate opportunity for further savings, and 2) importantly, the partners have not agreed further savings targets for 2023/24 which is a one-year agreement.
Contribution To Orbis Total		1,556	1,556	129.6			0
Governance, People & Resources Total		32,706	28,325	612.3			1,028