2024/25 BUDGET - Budget changes from 2023/24 to 2024/25 Appendix 1

	2023/24 Adjusted Base £'000	Inflation £'000	Service Pressures £'000	Commitments and Reinvestment £'000	VFM & Other Savings £'000	2024/25 Original Budget £'000	Change over adjusted base £'000	Change over adjusted base %
Families, Children & Learning	63,001	2,506	4,476	-	(4,991)	64,992	1,991	3.16
Health & Adult Social Care	98,943	5,160	10,302	(62)	(4,712)	109,631	10,688	10.80
Economy, Environment & Culture	40,005	1,078	7,817	264	(6,801)	42,363	2,358	5.89
Housing, Neighbourhoods & Communities	21,493	924	2,776	-	(2,993)	22,200	707	3.29
Governance, People & Resources	31,006	904	998	10	(1,758)	31,160	154	0.50
Total Directorate Spending	254,448	10,572	26,369	212	(21,255)	270,346	15,898	6.25
Housing Benefit Subsidy	(301)	-	700	-	-	399	700	(232.56)
Bulk Insurance Premia	3,548	66	-	150	-	3,764	216	6.09
Capital Financing Costs	6,466	-	-	1,371	-	7,837	1,371	21.20
Corporate VFM Savings	(147)	(13)	-	-	(2,475)	(2,635)	(2,488)	1,692.52
Contingency and Risk Provisions	(3,343)	(96)	660	3,958	-	1,179	4,522	(135.27)
Unringfenced Grants	(23,318)	-	-	(8,795)	-	(32,113)	(8,795)	37.72
Levies to External Bodies	229	8	-	-	-	237	8	3.49
Other Corporate Budgets	(3,027)	(105)	-	100	-	(3,032)	(5)	0.17
NET REVENUE EXPENDITURE	234,555	10,432	27,729	(3,004)	(23,730)	245,982	11,427	4.87
Contributions to/ from(-) reserves	461	-	-	(90)	-	371	(90)	(19.52)
BUDGET REQUIREMENT	235,016	10,432	27,729	(3,094)	(23,730)	246,353	11,337	4.82
Funded By:
Revenue Support Grant	7,927					8,453	526	6.64
Business Rates Local Share	52,579					54,152	1,573	2.99
BRR Tariff/top up	1,212					1,648	436	35.97
Business Rates Collection Fund surplus/(deficit)	-					(1,816)	(1,816)	0
Council Tax Collection Fund surplus/(deficit)	-					(1,174)	(1,174)	0
Council Tax	173,298					185,090	11,792	6.80
Total	235,016					246,353	11,337	4.82

Division	Total Savings Proposed £000	Total FTE 2023/24	Total 2024/25 Posts Deleted FTE
Director of Families, Children & Learning	0	4.0	0.0
Health, SEN & Disability Services	982	145.8	2.6
Education & Skills	1,768	259.3	8.1
Children's Safeguarding & Care	2,241	363.9	2.3
Quality Assurance & Performance	0	27.8	0.0
Families, Children & Learning Total	4,991	800.8	13.0
Adult Social Care	3,794	603.2	21.8
S75 Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust (SPFT)	488	60.0	0.0
Integrated Commissioning	259	51.9	0.0
Life Events	0	40.7	0.0
Public Health	171	66.2	0.0
Health & Adult Social Care Total	4,712	822.0	21.8
Transport	978	268.8	20.6
City Environmental Management	2,301	553.7	11.6
City Development & Regeneration	950	99.2	14.9
Culture, Tourism & Sport	653	86.3	0.0
Property	1,919	94.5	9.7
Economy, Environment & Culture Total	6,801	1,102.4	56.8
Housing General Fund	2,042	152.0	18.0
Libraries	132	59.2	3.4
Communities, Equalities & Third Sector	581	13.2	0.6
Safer Communities	238	68.8	3.0
Housing, Neighbourhoods & Communities Total	2,993	293.2	25.0
Chief Executive Monitoring Office	0	4.0	0.0
Policy & Communications	24	21.5	0.4
Legal & Democratic Services	335	64.5	5.0
Elections & Land Charges	20	5.0	0.0
Customer Modernisation & Performance insight	35	32.4	1.0
Finance	144	42.3	0.6
Procurement (Mobo)	2	0.0	0.0
HR & Organisational Development	222	58.1	3.2
IT&D (Mobo)	649	85.8	11.0
Welfare Revenue & Business Support	327	229.4	7.5
Contribution to Orbis	0	47.2	0.0
Governance, People & Resources Total	1,758	590.2	28.7
Corporately-held Budgets Total	2,475	0.0	41.0
Grand Total	23,730	3,608.6	186.2

Families, Children and Learning

Budget Strategy and Savings Proposals 2024/25

Service Context

The Families, Children and Learning Directorate brings together different services for children and young people as well as 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. Spend on children’s placements is under pressure given the national placement sufficiency issues, which have been exacerbated by the pandemic. There is a national shortage of foster care placements, and this has resulted in children being placed in provision based on availability rather than need. Such placements tend to be more expensive residential provision.

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 have been reducing in the context of national rises. During 2023 there has been a slight decrease in the number of children subject to a child protection plan locally. The number of children in care, excluding unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, has decreased although the complexity of need has increased.

The impact of the pandemic and national lockdowns on family relationships, particularly in those families with adolescents has been significant and there has been a concerning decline in the emotional health and wellbeing of children 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 the pandemic continues to manifest 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 causal 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.

Our vision is for a Directorate that is ambitious in providing the very best services and support to children and their families, working closely with partners. We want all the city’s children and their families to be happy, healthy and safe, and to be able to fulfil their potential. Services have been redesigned to improve efficiency and reduce costs and this will continue to be a focus going forward. Inevitably, this will require 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 statutory duties and provides quality assurance and performance management information. The key branches are as follows:

Education and Skills £12.526m

This service area includes:

· Family Hubs, Early Years and Youth support;

· Stronger Families (Troubled Families programme);

· 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;

· Ethnic Minority Achievement Service and Traveller Education Service.

Health SEN and Disability Services £8.812m

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.

Children’s Safeguarding and Care £41.836m

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 the MASH (Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub);

· Multi-disciplinary Partners in Change Hub including the 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*:

· 30,853 children attend city’s school (October 2023)

· 18,921 contacts were received by the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub/Front Door for Families during the year ending September 2023, of these 3,203 were safeguarding concerns that required follow up work;

· 7,496 Parents/Carers applied for school places (2022-23 academic year);

· 6,462 children receive SEND support in maintained schools (including 1,537 children who have an Education Health & Care plan) (October 2023);

· 7,341 children are eligible for free school meals (October 2023);

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

· 1,151 individuals (children and young people only) open to Family Hubs from 01/04/2023 to 30/09/2023.

· 1,543 children aged under 18 supported by social work to be safe (as at 30 September 2023) 262 children are on a child protection plan (as at 30^th September 2023);

· We act as Corporate Parent to 344 children in care and 373 care leavers aged between the ages of 18 and 25 (September 2023)

· We provide care for 51 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (September 2023);

· 434 pupils in Brighton and Hove are educated at home (30^th September 2023);

· There are 148 in-house foster carer households, and 23 Supported Lodgings only households as at 30-Sep-2023;

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

* 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 will continue to work as one Families, Children and Learning directorate and together with others in the city, deliver safe and whole family services, improve outcomes, and develop inclusive and accessible provision.

To achieve this, we will:

- Recognise and address the ongoing impact of post pandemic living and the cost-of-living crisis and work with partners to continue to deliver high quality and inclusive services.

- Work with partners to tackle disadvantage, to improve outcomes for children and their families.

- Work with our schools, colleges and adult education providers to promote, support, and deliver high quality educational and skills provision.

- Continue the redevelopment of early help provision and promote whole family working through the Family Hubs.

- Deliver a robust and improving, safe and effective social work service which responds to the changing needs of children and their families.

- 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.

- Improve the diversity of our workforce.

We commission and deliver services with partners to ensure children and young people live happy, safe and positive lives, achieving their potential. This is achieved within the context of high demand and reducing resources.

Our directorate objectives are to:

1. Take a whole family approach to support safe and stable lives.

2. Improve outcomes for disadvantaged children, young people and families and adults.

3. Provide high quality and inclusive education; Special Educational Needs & Disability (SEND), and employment support; and early years, social care, youth and skills provision.

4. Develop and engage with staff and stakeholders to deliver high quality services within the directorate and across council services

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 SEND respite, youth participation, employment and skills and children’s placements.

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.

Other areas identified for savings include:

· Projected increase in free entitlement income from Nurseries.

· Reprovision of services provided by Tudor House.

· Reduction in the employability service.

· Ceasing the Outreach service for children with disabilities.

· Reduction in the Youth Led Grants Programme.

· Reduction in the Youth participation service.

· Reduction in the Partners in Change hub.

· Introduction of modest Home to School Transport charging for 16–19-year-old.

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:

· Support for Children in Care £1.618m;

· Home to School Transport £1.069m;

· Support for Children with Disabilities £0.796m;

· Schools PFI Contract £0.643m;

· Legal Fees 0.150m.

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. The development of Family Hubs continues 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 be proud of.

· Work to ensure care leavers have suitable accommodation.

A Fair and Inclusive City.

· Lead on apprenticeship work.

· Support the employment and skills city plan.

· Support to schools in delivering equalities curriculums, including anti-racist education.

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

A Healthy City where People Thrive.

· Keep children and young children safe and ensure no child or family is left behind including recruiting more foster carers and delivering our Corporate Parenting Strategy

· Develop our prevention and family support work including delivering new Family Hubs in the city.

· Support the provision of high quality and inclusive education from early years through to adult learning.

· Work with partners to deliver ambitious employment, training and apprenticeship opportunities.

A Responsive Council with well-run services.

· Meeting the needs of our residents and other customers through an improved customer offer.

Section	Service Area	Brief Summary of Budget Proposal/Strategy and Risks	Total Savings Proposed 2024/25
Section	Service Area	Brief Summary of Budget Proposal/Strategy and Risks	£'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	No proposed saving - Director of Children's Services (DCS) role is a statutory requirement.	0
Director of Families, Children & Learning Total			0
Health, SEN & Disability Services
Services for children with disabilities	Residential, respite and short breaks.	Re-designate Tudor House as a full-time residential care placement facility for 4 children and young people with complex needs. This would enable the service to bring 4 children currently receiving their care and education outside of the city back into local provision. The full short-breaks capacity of Drove Road is not being utilised and the aim would be to transfer those children currently receiving short breaks at Tudor House to Drove Road. See EIA 1.	504
Services for children with disabilities and Adults with learning disabilities	Management, assessment, operations and admin	No saving opportunity identified in this statutory service with a budget under pressure due to demand.	0
Services for children with disabilities	Direct payments	Efficiency saving linked to a wider review of direct payment arrangements and pending completion of a revised policy.	50
Services for children with disabilities	Family support services	Reduction of Outreach Service - supports SEND children and families and is linked to provision of extended day services. Impact would be mitigated by development of support to families around Personal Assistant use and direct payments. See EIA 2.	115
Services for children with disabilities	Contracted services, adaptations, management	Efficiencies in the reprocuring of after school provision linked to contracts formerly delivered by third parties	32
Agency placements - disabled children	Independent and non maintained children's homes, special schools and boarding school placements	Limit the number of expensive external residential placements through commissioning and brokerage work (£0.250m). Risk: this is a demand-led budget that has to respond to presenting needs, including high cost placements. See EIA 3.	250
Special educational needs	Special Educational Needs	No saving opportunity identified in this statutory service with a budget under pressure due to demand.	0
Inclusion Support Service	Inclusion Support Service. Including Educational Psychology Service and Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)	No proposed savings - includes some statutory services (Ed Psychologists) and support for C&YP around Early Help and Well-being	0
Inclusion Support Service	Inclusion Support Service. Including Educational Psychology Service and Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)	Funding provided through a Public Health contribution to services delivered in the Inclusion Support Service.	31
Health, SEN & Disability Services Total			982
Education & Skills
Schools PFI	This budget accounts for credit payments from the DfE to cover the 25 year PFI program for 3 secondary schools.	No saving possible. 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.	0
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. This also includes support for the delivery of the Brighton & Hove Environmental Education service	School improvement, monitoring and intervention. Modest efficiency saving of £20k from the General Fund budget but no reduction to the de-delegation monitoring grant from Dedicated Schools Grant. Second, a proposal to cease the Environmental Education Service which has staffing implications. Risk: Reduction in support to schools around environmental issues and closure of ‘Our City, Our World’ website which is reasonably well utilised by schools. See EIA 4.	61
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.	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.	0
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.	This is non-statutory work. However, it supports the council's commitment to becoming anti-racist. Children & Young People Committee agreed 5-year funding to enable anti-racist school strategy to become embedded.	0
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.	Statutory service under considerable cost and demand pressures. Proposed saving in line with the income generated from the ability to charge for elements of the home to school transport service.	23
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.	This is a statutory duty. No saving opportunity identified.	0
Other Educational support	This includes Governor support, Redundancy and Asset management and Education & Traded services support	No savings can be made as this is a traded service with schools that recovers costs (including overheads).	0
Youth Services	Commissioned community and voluntary sector youth services provides a range of traditional youth services across the city, and include equality groups	Youth Service Grants Programme - this is linked to housing HRA funding. The contracts end in March 2025.	0
Youth Services	The Youth Led Grants Programme provides additionally funded youth activities/projects delivered by the community and voluntary sector across the city.	Cease Youth Led Grants Programme. Risks: No additional projects funded but reduction could potentially be offset through use of the Holiday Activity and Food (HAF) programme funding subject to its continuation. HAF monies could be ringfenced for youth groups to focus on providing holiday activities with a healthy meal for young people taking up free school meals. See EIA 5.	80
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. The service also provides an accredited Youth Arts Programme	Review of youth structure to be completed, linked to Family Hubs development including youth arts support being provided as part of Family Hubs intervention offer. Saving to be achieved by funding through Family Hubs budget utilising the uplift of external funding through Supporting Families grant and restructuring the youth management resource and deleting a vacant youthwork co-ordinator post.	145
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.	Statutory service - no saving opportunity identified.	0
Early Years	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.	Switch a General Fund workforce development post to DSG funding as part of the early years funding extension.	35
Brightstart Nursery	Bright Start, 50 places full day/year. Total budget including Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) is £446k. Council subsidy 23%. 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.	The proposal is to move Bright Start nursery to the Tarner Family Hub to exit an unsuitable building and reduce the overall subsidy across nursery provision.	150
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 54%. 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.	Saving achievable through the announced increase in early years funding rates for this council.	24
Acorn Nursery	Acorn Nursery, North Portslade. 60 places full day/year. Total budget is £543k including DSG. Council subsidy is 23%. 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.	Saving achievable through the announced increase in early years funding rates for this council.	36
Cherry Tree Nursery	Cherry Tree Nursery, Hollingdean, 50 places full day/year. Total budget is £522k including DSG. Council subsidy is 26%. 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.	Saving achievable through the announced increase in early years funding rates for this council.	27
Roundabout Nursery	Roundabout Nursery, Whitehawk. 86 places full day/year. Total budget is £862k including DSG. Council subsidy is 21%. 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.	Saving achievable through the announced increase in early years funding rates for this council.	103
Family Hubs including Supporting Families Grant	The Family hubs transformation completes in September 2024 with the new model in place to deliver support for children, young people and families.	It is proposed to utilise £100k funding from DSG to support EYFE extension work for the management post and service support. Also, £10k efficiencies savings from non-staffing budgets and cessation of funding for external services through SLA's including: • Brighton unemployed centre – early years childcare for disadvantaged families (£11k); • Amaze – SEND groups (£1k); • Oasis – Creche provision for families accessing the service (£2k). Risks: Removing this funding will have an impact on the delivery of these by services by VCS partners as part of the Family Hub offer and will impact on disadvantaged groups accessing services. See EIA 6.	123
Family Hubs including Supporting Families Grant	The Family hubs transformation completes in September 2024 with the new model in place to deliver support for children, young people and families.	Contribution from Public Health Grant to services provided by the Family Help Hubs	754
Skills & Employment	Adult Education Budget & Community Learning	No saving opportunity identified. This is funded directly by the Education Skills Funding Agency on an annual non-procured grant.	0
Skills & Employment	Skills and Employment Core Team	No savings are proposed. This team provides leadership on the employment and skills agenda. The council has a statutory duty to secure sufficient suitable education and training provision.	0
Skills & Employment	Apprenticeship and Pre-employment Team (Unspent levy is returned to the government on a 'use it or lose it basis’ so without this budget further levy would return. The staff support £2m of Levy - over 140 apprentices engaged for 13 months up to 5 years)	Within this budget, £0.063m funds the pre-employment scheme and paid placement opportunities for disabled people of all ages. One-off alternative funding has been identified for 24/25 to enable service to continue. For this to continue into 2025/26 alternative permanent funding will need to be identified. Risk: Service creates work experience, TLevel Placements, Supported Internships, Sector Work Based Academy programmes within the council and supports the workforce diversity agenda and the wider Fair and Inclusive strategy.	63
Skills & Employment	Employability Service-Supported Employment Team (Youth Employment, Youth Employment Hub and Supported Employment)	£0.144m savings are proposed for reduction of Supported Employment and Youth Employability provision. However, one-off alternative funding from the Shared Prosperity Fund has been identified 2024/25. Permanent alternative funding will need to be identified to meet £144k reduction in budget from 2025/26 which retains statutory functions of the Youth Employment service.	144
Print & Sign	Print & Sign Unit	Net income generator - no saving proposed.	0
Education & Skills Total			1,768
Children's Safeguarding & Care
Fostering & Adoption	Payments to in-house carers for fostered and adopted children.	No savings proposed - statutory duty. Aim is to ultimately increase in-house carers to reduce Independent Foster Agency costs.	0
Fostering & Adoption	Staffing teams assessing and supporting foster carers. Allowances paid to Adopters	No savings proposed - statutory duty.	0
Adoption Southeast	Regional Adoption Agency	No savings proposed - statutory duty and important service that mitigates higher alternative costs.	0
Social Work	Social work staffing teams.	Small non-staffing efficiency proposed.	10
Social Work	Expenditure incurred under section 17 & 18 of the 1989 Children Act.	No savings proposed - statutory duty. Contributes to the council's response to welfare reforms which will become even more important with the ending/reduction of the Household Support Fund.	0
Social Work	Legal costs relating to assessment and court fees.	No savings proposed - statutory duty which achieves significant cost avoidance.	0
Contact Service	Family contact for children in care (Chic) and children in need (CIN)	Efficiency savings and deletion of 1.25fte vacancies. Risk: To deliver the statutory duty will require some use of sessional staff which could result in a budget pressure. See EIA 7.	72
Care Leavers	Services for 18-24 year olds leaving care, including staying put and ex-asylum seekers.	No savings proposed - statutory duty that meets a core priority.	0
Agency Placements	Residential, fostering and secure placements for looked after children provided by external agencies	A significant saving is proposed in respect of an ongoing project to increase the number of in-house foster placements and reduce reliance on more expensive independent providers. Economies are also sought through the provision of high quality, value for money contracted services with external providers using 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 identified pressures on this budget will be met across the overall budget. A small number of adolescents with very significant needs continue to place pressure on these budgets combined with a national shortage of placements. Impact on Outcomes: The council's 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. See EIA 8.	2,004
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.	The adolescent service works with the most vulnerable adolescents in the city, at risk of criminal and sexual exploitation, misusing substances and at risk of teenage pregnancy. Risk: Efficiencies are potentially manageable but may result in escalation of need which requires statutory, more expensive social work intervention, including placement in care.	80
Family group conferences	Family group conferences	No savings proposed - supports statutory duty and provides a key preventative service achieving cost avoidance.	0
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	Deletion of a vacancy is proposed. This service provides specialist assessments and supports social work to undertake complex work to prevent children coming into care or within care proceedings. This service provides specialist reports to court, preventing the court requesting expensive specialist externally commissioned assessments. Risk: If demand cannot be managed effectively, a reduction in the service could impact on specialist assessments requested by the court and lead to increased expense. See EIA 9	75
Social Care Grant	Social Care Grant		0
Children's Safeguarding & Care Total			2,241
Quality Assurance & Performance
Children's Safeguarding & Quality Assurance	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.	No savings proposed. The BHSCP as it is a partnership budget, owned alongside Police and Health and is a statutory function.	0
Quality Assurance & Performance Total			0
Families, Children & Learning Total			4,991

Health & Adult Social Care

Budget Strategy and Savings Proposals 2024/25

Service Context

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

Principle Adult Social Care service area responsibilities covered in this strategy include services for vulnerable adults with Care Act eligible needs including older people, physical and sensory disability, mental health, carers and all ancillary activities. Public Health work with partners throughout the City to improve and protect the health of residents of all ages. 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 from 25 years have been transferred back to the Health and Adult Social Care Directorate from April 2023. Services for adults with learning disability and autism up to 25 years old continue to be delivered through the Families, Children and Learning Directorate, with delegated powers within that Directorate for budget spend for this cohort. However, the whole budget for all adult social care services, including adults with a learning disability are 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:

· Lead and deliver actions to improve health, prevent ill health, reduce health inequalities and protect the health of our residents. Promote preventative and early intervention approaches to maintain health & wellbeing, insofar as this promotes independence and reduces immediate demand for more expensive, statutory services;

· 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;

· 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, with budget figures for 2023/24:

1) Public Health Net nil budget (Funded by grant - gross budget £22.659m)

This service area includes:

· Drugs and alcohol treatment and recovery

· Sexual Health

· Children 0-19 Public Health programmes

· A dedicated Healthy Lifestyles team

· A range of Public Health and Health Improvement services and functions including promotion of physical activity, stop smoking, weight management, NHS Health Checks, Ageing Well, public mental health, local health protection etc.

The above services are provided by Public Health, other BHCC directorates, NHS providers and the Voluntary and Community Sector.

· producing the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment and providing public health advice to Integrated Care System partners including the NHS

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

· The Public Health grant is ring fenced with specific criteria for spend and is considered separately from the general fund. The main and primary purpose of all spend from the grant is public health.

· Public Health services and functions are central to the preventative approach adopted in the HASC strategy and our Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy. The grant supports delivering population health outcomes and contributes to the financial stability of both the directorate and the Council.

· Public Health services and functions are 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) £104.028m

This service area includes:

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

3) Commissioning, Contracts and Performance £5.354m

This service area includes:

Commissioning & Performance teams
Care Brokerage team
Self-directed support

· Carer support

· Council management of partnership arrangements with Health including the Better Care Fund

4) Life Events £0.249m

This service area includes:

Bereavement Services
Coroner Services
Registration Services including weddings

In total therefore HASC net budget for 2023/24 is £102.576m. The Community Care budget is £68.387m and equates to 67% of the overall HASC budget, meaning our main area of spend relates to the external 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 a number of 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. HASC also manage 5 residential group homes and 3 supported living homes for people with learning disabilities; a day service at Wellington House, a Shared Lives service and a Community Support Service.

Budget Context

The activity data shown below is for the last 3 years. Data in red is updated from the HASC Budget Strategy 23/24. For purposes of comparison the updated data in the table below does not include the data from people using learning disability services.

FUNDED CARE SERVICE	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23	2023/24 (Apr – Sept)
Adults receiving domiciliary care	1,856	1,653	1,555	1,442
Adults receiving residential care	637	556	573	522
Adults receiving nursing care	591	486	500	448
Adults receiving a direct payment	432	436	448	439
Total number of adults provided with long term funded care during the period	3,516	3,131	3,076	2,851

Since April 2023 adult Learning Disability Services from 25+ have returned to the HASC Directorate. All adults in learning disability services from 18 and over come under the Care Act requirements, and so data will now include data for adults with a learning disability who are receiving a service. The data in the table below shows all BHCC adult social care data, with learning disability activity data now included.

With Adults LD included – All statutory data submitted for returns.

FUNDED CARE SERVICE	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23	2023/24 (Apr – Sept)
Adults receiving domiciliary care	2,369	2,162	2,060	1,929
Adults receiving residential care	801	722	736	678
Adults receiving nursing care	599	494	511	457
Adults receiving a direct payment	600	610	627	609
Total number of adults provided with long term funded care during the period	4,369	3,988	3,934	3,673

We can see that the data above shows an ongoing steady trend in reduction of long-term funded care in Brighton & Hove. This is echoed across the country, and the national trend of clients in long-term support (as a % of the adult population) over the last 4 years (1.85%) has also fallen in line with BHCC figures (1.70%). However, for adults aged 18-64, BHCC (0.96%) is slightly above the England average (0.85%). As explained further below however, this reduction in demand needs to be considered within the context of increasing complexity of individual cases and the consistent increase in provider unit costs.

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The main proportion of that reduction locally is in the older (65+) age group dropping in 22/23 to near the national average, with the 18-64 age group remaining static both nationally and locally over the last 3 years. A similar drop for long-term support in the older age group can be seen within BHCC’s statistical nearest neighbours. However, this is countered in the above data by a considerable increase in the number and cost of working age adults aged 18-64.

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, inflation and cost of living for things like fuel and energy bills impact on our unit costs for both residential and nursing care. In B&H we have higher gross expenditure per head of the population compared to other local authorities in the South East (LGA Use of Resources report indicates that the B&H mean is £609, with the South East mean being £517). This is mainly driven by our unit costs for residential and nursing care for those over 65 years of age which is above average for the country (LGA Use of Resources report indicates B&H mean is £1,136 per week, our South East comparators mean is £993), and that currently in B&H there are more people residing in residential and nursing homes than our comparators. Unit costs for residential and nursing care for 18 – 64 year olds in B&H compare more favourably with our South East comparators (LGA Use of Resources report indicates the B&H average is £1,590 weekly, the South East mean is £1,596). B&H home care costs also compare favourably to the rest of the South East (LGA Use of Resources report indicates the B&H average is £20.62 per hour, the South East region mean is £20.88 per hour). This does not include the cost of reablement at home provided by our in-house home care provider, as this is a specialist service provision aimed at supporting people to reduce ongoing care needs, and therefore costs more than the average hourly rate.

This means that our budget strategy must continue to support the management of unit costs, particularly for residential and nursing care for people 65 years and over and must support keeping people well and independent and to remain at home for as long as possible for all adult age groups.

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 and the Directorate Strategy agreed Summer 2023. 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. Whilst demand is increasing in some areas and not in others, more generally there is evidence of increased complexity of individual cases which often require more intensive and expensive package of care. We will continue to develop new models of working in order to reduce the pressure on workforce requirements, such as increasing and improving customers' ability to self-assess.

- Market management – following from the national Fair Cost of Care exercise, a review of framework rates will be undertaken alongside continued investment into other service areas such 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 and provides value for money. We will continue to focus on our brokerage offer to manage unit costs for care and support. Contracts will continue to be reviewed for value for money and ensure that all contracts are delivering core business need.

- Financial Management – ensuring robust financial management, value for money and efficiencies. As stated above, 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 £26.9m acknowledging a combination of increasing demand in specific areas, complexity and unit cost. HASC are requesting budget growth for 2024/25 of £10.302m for adult social care services of which £4.6m is funded by Government grants. Adult Social Care pressures are calculated on unit cost increases and increases in demand and complexity in line with trends from previous years.

In 2023/24 HASC committed to managing its pressures and reducing its budget as part of the Council’s savings programme to a net reduction of £4.316m. HASC is projected to deliver a forecast of under 1% overspend on outturn by end of 2023/24, 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 be proud of

Investing in our city

We recognise the importance of a healthy population to a thriving and fair economy. Our healthy lifestyles team support more than 3,700 people in the city and our physical activity strategy supports the investment of facilities in our city. We will continue our investment in partnership working with the local voluntary and community sector and build on joint community working.

The directorate has completed a workforce strategy which focuses upon improving opportunity for our internal workforce and we continue to engage constructively with the wider care sector to both encourage employment opportunity and provide jobs for adults with eligible care needs.

An accessible, clean, and sustainable city

Through the Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy, Adult Learning Disability Strategy, Autism Strategy, our contribution to the Accessible City Strategy, we are supporting people to have improved access to the city.

Our commissioning always considers how we can be more sustainable and contribute towards carbon reduction. We also aim to maximise social value through our commissioning.

A Fair and Inclusive City

An inclusive and fairer city

Reducing health inequalities is at the heart of our Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy and one of the key priorities of Improving Lives, the Sussex wide Health and Care strategy. We seek to continuously improve the opportunities for diverse people with lived experience to influence and improve services and we are actively embedding a coproduction approach as business as usual in all that we do. Our continued work through the Anti-racism Strategy, Accessible City Strategy and Fair and Inclusive Action Plan aim to reduce inequalities for our community and our workforce. Equalities impact assessments are crucial to ensuring we mitigate negative impacts to communities where service alterations take place.

A city where people feel safe and welcome

We are working with the city to develop more age and dementia friendly spaces and developing our combatting drugs strategy.

Through the Safeguarding Adults Board we are looking to continuously improve how we work across multiple agencies in the city to protect those most vulnerable to harm and abuse.

Homes for everyone

We are working with our housing colleagues to ensure accommodation and social care needs of residents are met. The Changing Futures multi-disciplinary team is supporting people with multiple disadvantage, many of whom experience homelessness. We aim to promote independence of adults with care and support needs so that they can live in a place that they can call home.

A Healthy City Where People Thrive

A better future for children and young people

Support to children and young people is an essential priority that we are determined to give future focus to in delivering our prevention and early intervention offers. The Healthy Child Programme is a key programme funded by Public Health and Starting Well is a key aim or our Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy. We support public Health outcomes and integrated services within the Family Hubs programme and the health visiting and school nursing is provided as part of the Healthy Child Programme.

Activities Work and Learning is a priority within the Adult Learning Disability Strategy.

Living and ageing well

Our prevention programmes enable people to live healthy, happy and fulfilling lives. These include physical activity, mental health promotion and suicide prevention, sexual health, physical health, tobacco, alcohol and drugs. A key focus of our budget strategy is prevention of admission into long term residential and nursing care and promoting independence in the community. This includes ensuring everyone has access to the information, advice, and services they need and our work towards integrated community teams and joined up services. We are continuously seeking to maintain and improve the quality, effectiveness, accessibility, and inclusivity of our services.

A Responsive Council with Well Run Services

People are at the heart of everything we do, and we strive to provide good customer service to all and make sure people have access to the information and advice they need. We work with partners across the city to focus on the health and wellbeing of our residents. Our fair and inclusive action plan and workforce strategy aim to improve the experience for our workforce. Through meticulous budget management and good governance, we aim to have resilient, safe, and effective services fit for the future.

Section	Service Area	Brief Summary of Budget Proposal/Strategy and Risks	Total Savings Proposed 2024/25
Section	Service Area	Brief Summary of Budget Proposal/Strategy and Risks	£'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 2,135 budgeted capacity for 2023/24	Savings proposals include: £568k from increased Craven Vale reablement capacity; £335k through managing provider fee uplifts taking into account the current market fee position; £208k through the design of a different Discharge-to-Assess (D2A) model; £302k efficiencies from the Target Operating Model (TOM) and associated admission avoidance, ensuring all Extra Care and other block contract voids are effectively managed and filled throughout 2024/25; £225k from overdue Financial Assessment reviews; £69k by ensuring that reviews demonstrate support services are adequate to meet needs and represent efficiency and value for money Delivery risk: The Community Care budget is demand-led and is under significant pressure which should be matched by government and service pressure funding. Craven Vale saving - the demand for reablement may reduce and there could be challenges recruiting therapist and care posts. Ther are also potential risks around provider failure / giving notice on services i.e. impacts on sufficiency. Delivery of the new TOM at Access Point will be required by 01/04/2024. See EIA 10	1,707
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	Small increase in Public Health contribution to specialist drugs and alcohol service.	5
Assessment & Support and Intervention Team (SIT)	Community Equipment Service	Economies and efficiencies are continually explored as is recovery and refurbishment of equipment but no further saving opportunity is possible at present.	0
Hostel Accommodation	Hostel Accommodation 71 beds budgeted for in 2023/24	Housing Benefit optimisation through increased income levels. Delivery risk: requires activity levels to be maintained. See EIA 11	344
Memory & Cognition Support - Residential	Ireland Lodge Residential Wayfield Ave Residential 58 budgeted capacity for 2023/24	Reduce service to 24 beds from 34 beds currently. Delivery risk: Alternative private and independent sector provision is available. A full year saving may not be achieved due to other staffing pressures. See EIA 11	211
Physical Support - Residential	Craven Vale Resource Centre 24 budgeted capacity for 2023/24	No saving identified but see linked proposal above to utilise Craven Vale to achieve Community Care savings.	0
Community Short Term Services	Community Short Term Services & Independence at Home (Including Early Supported Stroke Discharge and Apportionment of Assessment Duties Budget capacity for 2023/24 assumes a max of 65 people in service at any time through 12 month period	Efficiencies in premises budget and efficiencies through deletion of vacant posts. Delivery risk: reducing opportunity for growth and flexibility within the reablement service. See EIA 11	130
Services for Adults with learning disabilities	Management, assessment, operations and admin	No direct saving but will be considered as part of overall 'Organisational Design' principles.	0
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.	Learning Disabilities 1,103 budgeted capacity for 2023/24	Savings proposals include: £450k through managing provider fee uplifts taking into account the current market fee position; £141k Housing Benefit optimisation through increased income levels; £172k continuation of targeted reviews supporting adults to move from high cost placements into new living arrangements which promote independence; £50k review of existing block contracts. Delivery risk: potential risks around provider failure / giving notice on services. See EIA 10	813
Learning Disabilities - Community Support (Adults)	In-house Community Support Service	Proposed saving of £182k from closure of in-house Community Support Service, through alternative spot purchasing of support hours via independent sector contract framework. Redeployment of staff into existing vacancies and/or managing staffing changes through a voluntary severance process may be required. Delivery Risk: ensuring there is enough market capacity to absorb spot purchasing and industrial relations issues delay staff moves. See EIA 11	182
Learning Disabilities - Day Services (Adults)	In-house Day Service	Efficiencies within the service are achievable through deletion of vacant posts. See EIA 11	75
Learning Disabilities - Residential (Adults)	In-house Residential	No saving opportunity identified for 2024/25.	0
Learning Disabilities - Residential (Adults)	In-house Respite Services	No saving opportunity identified for 2024/25.	0
Learning Disabilities - Shared Lives (Adults)	In-house Shared Lives Service	No saving opportunity identified for 2024/25.	0
Learning Disabilities - Supported Accommodation (Adults)	In-house Supported Living	Closure of Cromwell Road (£327k) - service users needs can be met within the independent sector and/or through moves within existing in-house LD Services. Staff redeployment across in-house services and/or a voluntary severance process may be required. Delivery risk: time taken to identify suitable placement for Cromwell Rd tenant requiring another service model. See EIA 11	327
Adult Social Care Total			3,794
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 396 budgeted capacity for 2023/24	Saving proposals include: £105k through managing provider fee uplifts taking into account the current market fee position; £96k from implementing the Target Operating Model and associated Admission Avoidance, ensuring all Extra Care and other block contract voids are effectively managed and filled throughout 2024/25; £75k from overdue Financial Assessment reviews. Delivery risk: potential risks around provider failure / giving notice on services. Community Care budget is demand-led. Delivery of the new TOM at Access Point is required by 01/04/2024. See EIA 10	276
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 527 budgeted capacity for 2023/24	Saving proposals include: £110k through managing provider fee uplifts taking into account the current market fee position; £102k by implementing the Target Operating Model and associated Admission Avoidance, ensuring all Extra Care and other block contract voids are effectively managed and filled throughout 2024/25. Delivery risk: potential risks around provider failure / giving notice on services. Community Care budget is demand led. Delivery of the new TOM at Access Point is required by 01/04/2024. See EIA 10	212
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	No saving identified due to high pressure on service.	0
S75 Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust (SPFT) Total			488
Integrated Commissioning
Commissioning & Contracts	Support to Carers	No saving identified due to cost avoidance provided by this budget.	0
Commissioning & Contracts	Adults Commissioning & Performance Team Executive Director Adult Services Safeguarding Team	Alternative delivery of absence management service. See EIA 11	28
Commissioning & Contracts	Integrated Commissioning	Savings proposed include: £140k Public Health funding for UOK contract; £40k Community Transport contract - end current grant contribution to this service (See EIA 12); £10k Support with confidence contract - end funding. This is being picked up in the wider Direct Payments review and commissioning work (See EIA 13). £41k Sensory Support Contracts - end funding for these services (See EIA 14).	231
Commissioning & Contracts	Learning Disability Development Fund	No saving possible.	0
Integrated Commissioning Total			259
Life Events
Life Events	Bereavement Services	No saving identified due to pressure on income budgets.	0
Life Events	Coroner Services	No saving identified due to additional costs expected from 2024/25.	0
Life Events	Registrars	No saving identified due to pressure on income budgets.	0
Life Events Total			0
Public Health
Public Health	Ring-fenced Public Health Grant	Ring-fenced grant funding deployed as shown below.	0
Substance Misuse	Substance Misuse services		0
Sexual Health	Commissioning of sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention and treatment, contraception, HIV prevention and advice services.		0
Children 0-19 Public Health Programmes		Cessation of recurrent Public Health funding for Free Swimming Scheme for 0-18s. Funding for continuing provision in 2024/25 and 2025/26 will be from the one-off Public Health reserve funding and the scheme will be reviewed in 2024/25.	0
Health Improvement		General Fund funding provided for Public Health will be discontinued and cost of programmes going forward will be met from Public Health ringfenced grant.	171
		Cessation of Public Health funding for ASC Prevention contracts including Shopmobility and Disability Advice Centre. See EIA 12.	0
		Reprofiling of demand-led locally commissioned services in NHS budgets to reflect current and future anticipated activity (no impact on current service provision). Recurrent funding for Healthy Pharmacy Scheme will be removed and funded from Public Health ringfenced budget reserve for 2024/25 and 2025/26 (no impact on service delivery during this period).	0
Public Health Total			171
Health & Adult Social Care Total			4,712

Economy, Environment & Culture

Budget Strategy and Savings Proposals 2024/25

Service Context

The Economy, Environment & Culture directorate’s focus is on making the city a vibrant place where people want to live, visit and do business, and where the unique character of Brighton and Hove is celebrated and enhanced. This includes making the city an accessible and sustainable place where people are well-connected and can enjoy an attractive, well-maintained built and natural environment.

The directorate is driving the city’s progress towards achieving net zero carbon by 2030 and working with partners to create the right conditions for a prosperous Brighton and Hove by supporting local innovation, enterprise and investment. With a focus on providing reliable, well-run services to the public, as well as protecting and regenerating key assets, the directorate works to preserve the city’s resources for future generations and promotes pride in place.

This is achieved through delivering the following services:

City Development & Regeneration

City Development & Regeneration leads on many of the council’s built environment functions. The service shapes development in the city through the statutory plan making process, development management and building control to ensure good urban design and protection of heritage, as well as compliance with building regulations to ensure safety. Driving the city’s progress towards net zero by 2030, the focus is on delivery of high impact projects to address the effects of climate change and sustainable development, as well as major regeneration and investment projects, including development of new affordable homes through the Homes for Brighton & Hove joint venture and New Homes for Neighbourhoods Programme. The team leads on the council’s work with Greater Brighton and city partners to develop a flourishing and inclusive local economy that attracts sustainable investment and nurtures business and innovation.

· One of the top twenty busiest unitary authority Planning services in England, dealing with 3000+ applications and 600+ enforcement case each year

· 15 projects and 269 new council homes via New Homes for Neighbourhoods, with planning approval for 264 more homes and a further 100 homes in the pipeline.

· Planning consent granted for the Phase 1 restoration of Madeira Terraces as an outdoor visitor destination, including 28 of the historic arches.

· Managing the UK’s only urban UNESCO Biosphere Region covering 390km² on behalf of the Living Coast Partnership.

· Engaging over 200 stakeholders in developing a citywide Economic Strategy for 2024-27 to grow a more thriving and inclusive economy, capitalising on the city’s comparative advantages.

· Supporting more than 1,700 entrepreneurs during 2023/24 (against a target of 750) through the Business & Intellectual Property Centre (BIPC) Sussex.

City Transport

City Transport develops clear plans to address the city’s current and future transport needs, working closely with Transport for The South East (TfSE) and other transport partners to delivers major highway infrastructure projects on key travel routes, such as Valley Gardens. A key priority is to maintain and improve the city’s transport network to transform user experience, increase resilience and extend the life of key highway assets, including managing the risks posed by flooding and protecting coastal highway structures. The service also ensures the city keeps moving though regulating road use, managing on-street and off-street parking and ensuring that all works are coordinated on the highway. Influencing people’s travel choices to reduce congestion and support improvements in air quality is also an important focus, providing sustainable transport options including enhancements in public transport, walking and cycling schemes, concessionary travel and an electric vehicle charging network.

· Managing highway infrastructure worth £4bn, including 624km of carriageway, 38km of cycle lanes and 1,200km of footways.

· Delivering a £28m Bus Service Improvement Programme.  

· Issuing and enforcing approximately 4,000 skips, scaffold and tables & chairs licences on the highway.

· Monitoring air quality in 6 areas across the city where levels of nitrogen dioxide are too high.

· 350+ on-street electric vehicle charging points installed and 3 rapid charging hubs across the city.

· Monitoring 240+ CCTV cameras to manage traffic throughout the city.

· £9m+ invested in concessionary travel each year and 10,000+ concessionary bus passes issued.

· Managing 37,000+ resident parking permit accounts and 44,000+ on and off-street car park spaces.

City Environmental Management

City Environmental Management delivers recycling, refuse and street cleaning services to improve the cleanliness of the city and meet the council’s environmental obligations. This includes traded commercial, bulky and garden waste services to residents and businesses across the city. Through delivery of the Fleet Strategy the service is leading the decarbonisation of council vehicles and ensures they are well maintained and legally compliant. The service also manages and conserves the city’s parks and open spaces, including the delivery of the Stanmer Park Masterplan, and management of the city’s tree stock.

· Carrying out 5 million refuse collections and 2.5 million recycling collections each year.

Providing power to fuel 25,000 homes a year from incineration of waste.
Management and maintenance of 500+ council vehicles, including 66 electric vehicles.

· Maintaining and cleaning 700 miles of pavement.

· Maintaining 34 public toilet sites and delivering a £4.5m refurbishment programme.

· Issuing around 4,000 fixed penalty notices each year for environmental offences

· Managing 147 parks and gardens, 74 outdoor spaces, 8 cemeteries and more than 3,000 allotments.

· Maintaining 53 playgrounds and delivering a £3m playground refurbishment programme

· Managing more than 12,000 street trees and over 500 hectares of woodland.

Property & Design

Property & Design leads the council’s property strategy with an emphasis on investment that delivers new revenue streams from council assets, supports local businesses and enables city regeneration. It also supports the overall budget strategy through a corporate programme of operational and commercial disposals. The service manages the council’s property and land portfolio which includes operational assets such as council offices, town halls, heritage, schools and leisure centres, commercial properties, and agricultural farmlands. Maintaining operational buildings to ensure they remain safe and fit for purpose is a key function, as well as designing and delivering major capital re-development projects and programmes with a focus on sustainability and affordability. The team leads on the delivery of the City Downland Estate Plan to promote natural capital investment, support biodiversity and tackle climate change.

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

• Managing 13,500 acres of City Downland Estate, including 78% farmland.

• Responding to over 11,000 repair requests each year on the council’s operational estate.

• Corporate Landlord to over 550 operational buildings.

• Delivering c.£6.5m 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 17.9% in 22/23.

• Ensuring that a school place is available in the city for every child that needs one.

Culture, Tourism & Sport

Culture, Tourism & Sport manages the city’s visitor economy assets including the Brighton Centre, seafront and the destination marketing service Visit Brighton to ensure the city remains a leading national and international visitor destination. It delivers an annual programme of varied and inclusive outdoor events to promote the city and manages partnerships with key culture providers, including the Royal Pavilion Museums Trust, Brighton Dome Brighton Festival, and the Keep, to ensure they have a diverse reach and contribute to the city’s economic ambitions. The service also leads the delivery of the council’s ten-year plan for revitalised sports facilities and manages investments in key leisure assets, including Kingsway to the Sea. Supporting artists and creative business in the city to flourish is also a key role of the service, facilitating inclusive communication, collaborative planning, and driving investment in cultural and creative industries.

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

• Co-ordinating approx. 250 outdoor events each year, with over 1m attendees.

• Approx. 70,000 resident visits to the Royal Pavilion and Museums equating to 24% of the city’s population.

• Sharing resources and information with more than 1,600 creative businesses and artists in the city, and funding local creatives through grant schemes such as Exhale,as part of Brighton & Hove’s commitment to being an anti-racist city.

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

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

• Visit Brighton has 375 business partners, promoting the city to visitors and attracting high value conferencing.

• Tourism worth nearly £1bn economic benefit and supporting 17.5% of city jobs.

Budget Strategy

Direction of travel

The directorate fulfils a specific place making role for Brighton and Hove, leading the city towards achieving net zero carbon, building people’s pride in place and supporting the growth of a diverse and resilient economy. Key directorate objectives for 2024/25 include:

· Investing in a programme of high impact projects that will increase the city’s resilience to, and address, climate change.

· Working across the council and the cityto support the transition to a circular and more equitable economy.

· Delivering key improvements to the council’s sports facilities in line with the Sports Facilities and Investment Plan.

· Developing a new sustainable local Transport Plan for the city.

· Implementing progressive service changes as part of the City Environmental Improvement Programme.

· Developing a new Cultural Strategy for the city.

· Embedding a new Economic Strategy for the city.

· Progressing the city’s major regeneration and infrastructure projects.

· Delivering new council homes and affordable homes through the New Homes for Neighbourhood Programme and Homes for Brighton & Hove joint venture.

To ensure the directorate can achieve its objectives the budget strategy focuses on reducing costs, maximising income and exploring alternative service delivery models, in particular:

· Delivering core services effectively and efficiently, pursuing all opportunities for collaboration, innovation and streamlining through improved use of technology, or bringing together areas of work, skills and expertise.

· Investing in services to modernise them for the future and ensuring we continue delivering the best for our customers whilst reducing running costs and lowering our carbon footprint.

· Adopting a more entrepreneurial approach to secure new sources of funding and maximise existing income streams.

· Making the best use of council assets, including disposing of premises where this is a viable option.

· Reviewing standards of service and exploring new partnerships or contractual arrangements to support service delivery, as well as opportunities to have community-le services.

· Supporting staff and their professional development to ensure the directorate has a diverse, resilient workforce and one with the relevant skills, knowledge and expertise to deliver its core objectives.

Areas of Focus for Savings

Savings for the directorate will be achieved through a mixture of commercial approaches to generating income, service redesigns and efficiencies, and changes in contractual arrangements.

Redesigning and increasing efficiencies in key business areas, including cityclean, parking, planning and sustainability. This involves reorganising staffing structures to streamline decision making. Further savings from the removal of vacant posts across transport, city parks, and property and design will enable these service areas to continue operating within a reduced budget, whilst meeting council priorities.

An uplift in parking fees and charges will help to maximise income whilst meeting traffic management objectives, including improving air quality, reducing demand and congestion, as well as achieving a higher turnover of spaces and supporting the local economy. Reviewing charges for traded waste services alongside marketing and extending these will also generate further income.

Taking a more entrepreneurial approach to leisure and tourism facilities and the sale of event/ commercial activity space in the city will increase revenues. Coupled with a review of the council’s agreements with its cultural partners and options to generate income from cultural consultancy in the planning process, income will be bolstered.

Savings will also be made from ending services that are no longer delivering a sufficient return and looking at opportunities to transfer assets out of the council to partners or communities.

A corporate disposal programme of operational and commercial assets will also support the budget strategy. Reviewing the council’s operational assets will continue to support changes in service delivery across the council, reducing spend on running costs, delivering potential capital receipts through the sale of vacant properties, and rationalising the council’s corporate offices. A review of commercial assets in conjunction with the One Public Estate agenda, working with other public sector organisations, will also release sites for regeneration or comprehensive redevelopment.

As a result of decommitted and delayed spend on capital projects the council’s capital programme will diminish, and budget savings on consultancy and professional fees will follow.

Areas for investment

· Long term capital investment to renew and strengthen the infrastructure of the city will continue, to ensure effective management of the highway 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.

· Continued 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 to generate further revenues each 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 progressing the delivery of a new Leisure Centre to replace the King Alfred.

· Delivery of £1.76m Shared Prosperity Funding to eligible local businesses or communities to improve pride in place and level up people's life chances.

· Implementing £9.5m of government Levelling Up funding for the £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.

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

· Delivery of 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.

· Continued investment in the city’s electric vehicle charging network utilising government grant funding.

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

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

· Investment into commercial asset to optimise income.

· 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.

· Investment in the Fleet Strategy to progress the decarbonisation of the council’s fleet.

· 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.

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

· Investment in business 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 Plan priorities as follows:

A city to be proud of: Investing in our city

· Develop Brighton & Hove as a place where people want to live, work, and learn.

· Grow a diverse and sustainable city economy.

· Promote and protect what makes Brighton & Hove unique.

A city to be proud of: An accessible, clean and sustainable city

· Keep our city clean and manage waste.

· Work towards carbon net zero.

· Protect and enhance the city’s natural environment.

· Make it easier for people to move around the city.

A fair and inclusive city: A city where people feel safe and welcome

· Create safe public spaces that are accessible for all.

· Homes for everyone.

· Increase housing supply.

A city that helps people to thrive: A better future for children and young people

· Support the provision of high quality and inclusive education from early years through to adult learning.

A responsive council with well-run services: Good governance and financial resilience

· Good governance and financial resilience.

Section	Service Area	Brief Summary of Budget Proposal/Strategy and Risks	Total Savings Proposed 2024/25
Section	Service Area	Brief Summary of Budget Proposal/Strategy and Risks	£'000
Economy, Environment & Culture
Transport
Head of City Transport	Head of City Transport	No saving identified but service will be reviewed as part of overall 'Organisational Redesign' principles.	0
Policy & Strategy	Policy & Strategy	Deletion of vacant Transport & Highway Development Manager post. Duties of the post will be redistributed within Traffic Management. The function is important for fulfilling the statutory highway authority role in the planning and development process. RISK: Will reduce technical capacity within the service.	70
Policy & Strategy	Policy & Strategy	Public Health contribution for active travel and road safety.	2
Policy & Strategy	Policy & Strategy	Delete a vacant SO1/2 Transport Monitoring & Research Officer post. RISK: Impact on the delivery and analysis of Parking and wider Transport consultations that is likely to affect the timetable for delivering projects/ service changes.	47
Transport Projects & Engineering	Transport Projects & Engineering	Capitalise the costs of the Streetlighting Manager. RISK: The council's capital programme is diminishing. Will create an in-year budget pressure if there are not projects to capitalise against.	58
Transport Projects & Engineering	Transport Projects & Engineering	Reduce support for extended bus services. Exploring funding from the Bus Service Improvement Plan to support the reduction. RISK: No Bus Service Improvement Plan funding guaranteed after 2026/27. See EIA 15.	58
Transport Projects & Engineering	Transport Projects & Engineering	Review and restructure resources focused on modal shift initiatives to deliver an efficiency. This will involve the deletion of a vacant Senior Project Manager post. RISK: Impact on ability to successfully access and deliver Capability grant funding.	40
Traffic Management	Traffic Management	Delete two vacant posts - Highway Enforcement Officer and Highway Inspector. RISK: Will reduce technical capacity in the service.	86
Parking	Parking	Increase all parking permits, on-street, and off street paid parking by on average 5% to maintain income in real terms. Allowing for impacts on demand, this provides £1.33m which meets the council's assumed inflationary target of 3.5%. RISK: Demand loss could be higher than projected which may lead to a budget pressure. A 5% increase reflects the level of demand loss in previous years following increased charges.	n/a
Parking	Parking	Increase all parking permits, on-street, and off-street paid parking by an additional 1% to increase on average by 6% overall. This accounts for £1.33m which is the 3.5% inflationary increase required, and also additional income of £190k. RISK: Demand loss could be higher which may lead to a budget pressure. See EIA 16.	190
Parking	Parking	Parking permits - Remove Norton Road staff passes, increase dispensations from £100 to £150,and increase the price of a car club bay for companies to reflect the resident permit cost. RISK: Operational or financial impact on services that rely on dispensations to deliver an effective response. Complaints from residents, staff and car club company. See EIA 16.	30
Parking	Parking	Increase light touch parking schemes to a price nearer to full schemes (which will be frozen for 2024/25) to reflect the utilisation of parking spaces and generate £60k income per annum taking into account demand loss. Changes will require a notice of intention so could not be implemented until May. See EIA 16.	60
Parking	Parking	Introduce penalties for unauthorised bay suspensions. RISK: Further modelling of income deliverability required. May be difficulties in practically enforcing the penalty. See EIA 16.	60
Parking	Parking	Review of localised parking to generate additional revenues. RISK: Could impact businesses, and resident and visitor patronage. See EIA 16.	77
Parking	Parking	Restructure Parking Services to ensure the structure and resource is in place to protect and maximise existing revenue streams, and explore new, innovative revenue areas to meet budgetary demands. This will reduce net staffing within the service with the aim of "delivering more with less" through improved workflow and processing. RISK: This may have some effect on customer service performance.	200
Transport Total			978
City Environmental Management
Head of City Environmental Management		No saving opportunity identified.	0
City Clean	Collections	Service redesign in Cityclean collections as per below. RISK: Managing industrial relations through effective consultation and engagement is key to delivery.	0
City Clean	Collections	Efficiencies in Cityclean operations leading to a reduction in the use of agency staff. RISK: Reduced contingency resource to cover unplanned absence and other service disruptions.	225
City Clean	Collections	Management redesign in Operations. Includes a review of facility time staffing at the depot. RISK: Requires effective consultation and engagement with recognised unions.	103
City Clean	Collections	Delete vacant Driver Supervisor posts in Cityclean collections. RISK: Increased pressure on remaining resources.	100
City Clean	Public Toilets	Change public toilets opening hours to end early opening and enable single, daytime staff shifts. A service redesign will be required. This saving is based on alternative investment for Royal Pavilion Garden toilets pending the garden redevelopment and new facility. It also does not include opening the Level toilets, as these are to be part of The MacLaren Pavilion and operated by the cafe tenant. RISK: Impact on events in some public spaces near public toilets. See EIA 17.	178
City Clean	Trade Waste	Increase trade waste collection charges to deliver additional income. RISK: May risk impacting existing customers and is dependent on market conditions.	75
City Clean	Garden Waste	Market and extend the garden waste collection service to expand the customer base and deliver additional income. RISK: Dependent on levels of demand.	75
City Clean	Street Cleansing	No saving opportunity identified.	0
City Parks	Operations	End school grounds maintenance contract. This would reduce the staffing costs by the equivalent of 2 fte gardeners. RISK: Could increase costs for schools.	30
City Parks	Operations	No saving opportunity identified in 2024/25.	0
City Parks	Operations	Charge allowable staffing expenditure to Stanmer Park parking income. This will reduce the gardener resource that is funded from core staffing budgets. RISK: Reduces overall annual surplus for further investment at Stanmer Park.	44
City Parks	Operations	Transfer of Bowling Greens to clubs (or closure) to save maintenance costs. RISK: Subsequent loss of income from bowling greens. See EIA 18.	10
Fleet	Fleet	Introduce an accident reduction policy and training to limit accident damage to the council's fleet, aiming to reduce wear and tear and driver error. RISK: Dependent on resource to develop the policy and support changes to driver behaviour.	10
Fleet	Fleet	Reduction in fleet maintenance costs through use of an in-house brake and calibration machine and provision of commercial brake testing service. RISK: Dependent on demand and market conditions.	25
CEM Strategy and Service Improvement	CEM Strategy and Service Improvement	Deletion of a vacant Assistant Business Support Manager post. This saving is to offset a service pressure from introducing a new team which is essential to managing digital CityClean. RISK: Increased pressure on remaining business support resource and customer service levels.	46
CEM Strategy and Service Improvement	CEM Strategy and Service Improvement	Deletion of vacant posts in the CityParks Project Team. RISK: Increased pressure on remaining resources to deliver City Parks projects.	80
Waste PFI	Waste PFI (saving will be shown in Waste PFI and not revenue budgets)	Reduce household waste through circular economy and increasing recycling initiatives to reduce overall disposal costs. RISK: Dependent on a number of investment streams, national legislation and resident behaviour. Difficult to calculate potential savings due to a variety of external factors such as global recycling markets; success of behaviour change; inflation etc.	100
Waste PFI	Waste PFI (saving will be shown in Waste PFI and not revenue budgets)	Increase in energy income from the Waste PFI contract. £500k is assumed to be one-off at this stage but will be kept under review during 2024/25.	1,200
City Environmental Management Total			2,301
City Development & Regeneration
Regen and Major Projects	Regen and Major Projects	Increase target for capitalisation of project support. RISK: Will create an in-year budget pressure if there are not sufficient projects to capitalise against.	70
International & Sustainability	International & Sustainability	Redesign the council's sustainability function to focus on achieving Net Zero by 2030 and prioritise the delivery of transformational projects. Also protect the unique natural environment of the UNESCO Biosphere. RISK: The Carbon Neutral Programme will be redesigned and biodiversity and climate adaptation work will reduce due to affordability constraints. Some staff will potentially be at risk of redundancy.	200
Planning	Planning	Restructure the Planning service to meet future needs. RISK: May result in impacts on performance in the short term and could affect investors' and developers' confidence in the city's planning system. This might see the service standards reduce and become 'just-acceptable'. Some staff will potentially be at risk of redundancy.	380
Planning	Planning	Increase planning fees by 25% in line with additional regulatory powers. RISK: Continuing fall in demand is likely to affect ability to achieve income, as reflected in service pressures.	300
Business Development & Customer Services	Business Development & Customer Services	No saving identified but service will be reviewed as part of overall 'Organisational Redesign' principles.	0
Economic Development	Economic Development	No saving opportunity identified for 2024/25. Service also needs to understand the implications of Local Enterprise Partnerships ending.	0
Director EEC	Director EEC	No saving identified but service will be reviewed as part of overall 'Organisational Redesign' principles.	0
City Development & Regeneration Total			950
Culture, Tourism & Sport
Head of Culture, Tourism & Sport	Head of Culture, Tourism & Sport	No saving identified but service will be reviewed as part of overall 'Organisational Redesign' principles.	0
Arts Development	Arts Development	Restructure Arts Development team to provide a focus on Culture & Planning to oversee public art consultancy with developers, making a case for and managing S106/CIL culture investments in new developments, and leading work on Culture at Risk with Property/Regeneration/Planning. RISK: Income not realised.	15
Museums and Culture	Museums and Culture	No saving in 2024/25 but potential savings in annual contributions to Royal Pavilion & Museums Trust due to a renegotiation of the service fee may be possible from 2026/27.	0
Museums and Culture	Museums and Culture	5% reduction in the Council's contributions to the Keep RISK: Potential impact on scale / breadth of offer. The Keep would need to find other sources of funding. Saving is subject to negotiating a revised agreement.	15
Museums and Culture	Museums and Culture	Release of heritage legacy funds.	355
Tourism & Venues	Tourism & Venues	Increase Brighton Centre ticket levy from £1.50 to £2.00 (extra 50p on every ticket). RISK: Facility fee cannot be increased beyond 2024/25 for at least 3 years to ensure it is well established and there is no negative impact on ticket sales. See EIA 19.	25
Tourism & Venues	Tourism & Venues	Reduction in subvention to the Brighton Centre. Shortfall will need to be made up through additional commercial activity or savings on expenditure budgets. RISK: Potential reduction in service quality and impact on the relationship with city partners and businesses. Need to ensure competitive rates and review this again in 2026/27.	100
Tourism & Venues	Tourism & Venues	Review longer term options for future delivery model of the Brighton Centre. Savings cannot be determined until full options appraisal is undertaken. Commercially sensitive and requires significant resources to undertake review and timelines/feasibility.	0
Tourism & Venues	Tourism & Venues	No saving opportunity identified for 2024/25.	0
Tourism & Venues	Tourism & Venues	No saving opportunity identified for 2024/25.	0
Tourism & Venues	Tourism & Venues	No saving opportunity identified for 2024/25 but a review of the Visit Brighton operating model is planned to consider future options.	0
Events	Events	Increase fees for filming in the city and explore an increase in targets for filming. RISK: Fees need to be competitive to attract film producers.	35
Events	Events	Increase income from brand activations across the city. RISK: Demand for activation space does not meet projections.	28
Sport & Leisure	Sport & Leisure	Income from the introduction of a transfer fee as part of the new, standardised licence for beach hut owners payable to the council upon the sale of their beach hut. The new standardised licence arrangements, including the transfer fee, were agreed by the Culture, Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Economic Development Committee on 9 November 2023, following a period of consultation with beach hut owners. RISK: Anticipated income from the transfer fee is jeopardised by a reduction in the number beach hut sales See EIA 20.	20
Sport & Leisure	Sport & Leisure	Increased income from new lettings on the seafront from Sea Lanes and food beverage concessions. RISK: Fall in demand for concessions.	40
Sport & Leisure	Sport & Leisure	Introduce parking charges at Withdean Sports Complex car park. Income is shared with the leisure provider, Freedom Leisure. RISK: May impact resident and visitor patronage. May push car parking to on-street.	20
Culture, Tourism & Sport Total			653
Property
Property & Design	Property & Design	Review of staffing and administrative support in line with 'Organisational Design' principles. RISK: Increased pressure on remaining resources.	32
Estates	Estates & Premises	Beech Cottage: Service-led relocation of Health & Adult Social Care team in occupation, which also delivers building-related savings on this budget line. Once vacant possession is obtained, options to relet or sell the property will be explored. RISK: Service-led dependency leading to delays obtaining vacant possession, delays in disposal, costs incurred in achieving both.	10
Estates	Estates	Bartholomew House: new tenant and heads of terms have been agreed for leasing of 3rd & 4th Floor Barts House. 2023/24 savings have been reprofiled for 2024/25 onwards. Savings are a combination of rent and occupational costs and will occur at start of 2024/25. RISK: Turnover rent is based on 80% occupancy but may be lower and the service charge costs estimated, may be higher. Capital costs for building reconfigurations (shared with new tenant) may increase.	310
Facilities & Building Services	Print & Courier	Deletion of vacant Post & Courier hours.	20
Corporate Landlord	Corporate Landlord	Increased charge to Public Health for Corporate Landlord support.	2
Building Surveying & Utilities Management	Building Surveying - Planned Maintenance Budget	Capitalise £0.7m of the revenue Planned Maintenance Budget for one year using cash balances in lieu of borrowing until rates are favourable. RISK: An overspend on the capital budget will have an impact on the revenue Planned Maintenance Budget.	700
Building Surveying & Utilities Management	Fee income PPT269	Reduce Building Surveying expenditure budget on consultancy including associated savings on Norton Road car park passes.	168
Building Surveying & Utilities Management	Fee income PPT269	Reduce Building Surveying & Utilities Management team including deleting two vacant Building Surveyor posts and 1vacant Graduate Building Surveyor post. This will enable the team to cover their operational costs, subject to the removal of the current £323k income target service pressure that drives fee generation over and above the operating costs from internal clients. There are currently annual programmes of essential maintenance for all non-housing properties and statutory property requirements that will persist. RISK: loss of fee earning potential due to possible reduction of central government funding for the educational capital programme. Saving dependent on service pressure funding.	150
Architecture & Design	Fee income PPT075	Reduce the Architecture and Design team in line with a diminishing capital programme (incl. deletion of 2 vacant Architects and 3 vacant Architectural Technician posts) and establish the principle that all council departments shall seek to use the internal service as the first port of call before options to procure architecture and design services externally are explored. There is recognition that the Architecture & Design service represents cost avoidance for the council and added value. This will enable the remaining team to cover their operational costs, subject to the removal of the current £578k income pressure that drives fee generation over and above the operating costs. RISK: loss of fee earning potential, further reductions in capital programme and government grants. Reduction of in-house professional expertise. Saving dependent on service pressure funding.	222
Architecture & Design	Fee income PPT075	Reduce Architecture and Design expenditure on professional fees. The need for consultancy should reduce as the council's capital programme diminishes and different construction procurement routes are explored and used. The costs largely relate to the Strategic Partnership which runs until September 2024. RISK: Diminishing programmes and reduction in professional expertise.	260
Education Capital	In-house maintenance budget	Reduce the in-house maintenance budget for education capital. RISK: Will impact on statutory maintenance requirements.	45
Property Total			1,919
Economy, Environment & Culture Total			6,801

Housing, Neighbourhoods & Communities Directorate

Budget Strategy and Savings Proposals 2024/25

Services and Responsibilities

The HNC Directorate includes the following services:

· Housing Management, the council housing landlord service comprising : Tenancy Services, including the Travellers Service; Housing Repairs & Maintenance; Housing Investment & Asset Management;

· Housing Needs & Supply (New Homes, Private Sector Housing, Temporary Accommodation, Supported [Commissioned] Accommodation, Homelessness and the Housing Register);

· Libraries and Information services, including the Business Intellectual Property Centre (BIPC);

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

· Communities, Equalities & Third Sector.

The directorate focuses on the issues affecting 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 community and public service partners. 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, health and safety of council homes;

· Increasing housing supply, supporting provision of additional council homes and development of other new affordable homes across the city;

· 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 & supported accommodation;

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

· Supporting the third sector to support and empower the city’s communities, especially residents that fall below statutory thresholds for council support;

· Licensing many of the businesses in the city to sell alcohol, provide taxis, street trading;

· Providing environmental health services;

· Coordinating community safety including leading the council’s ‘Prevent’ agenda; the approach to anti-social behaviour and tackling domestic abuse and VAWG;

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

· 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 support communities of identity and place.

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 . The council’s social landlord duties cover approximately 12,000 rented properties and 2,700 leasehold properties and the council remains the largest social 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, levels of demand for assistance for homeless households are unprecedented in line with national trends. Numbers of households in temporary accommodation is high but the proportion of households where homelessness is not prevented is reducing;

· Currently license 2,100 Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) across the city;

· The Private Sector Housing team received 537 requests for assistance between April 2023 and December 2023;

· We are on target to achieve 283 new units of affordable council homes for 23/24;

· Annual HRA rents and service charges of £74m per year; let over 600 homes (639 in 2022/23) per annum, over 50 per month; deliver over 30,000 repairs annually, on average of over 2,500 repairs per month or 82 repairs every calendar day in normal circumstances;

· Average capital programme of around £57m a year improving homes over 5 years; Proposed investment in major and planned works to council homes of £102m over the next 3 years; Proposed investment in health & safety of council homes of £35m over the next 3 years; proposed investment of £58m in new homes over the next five years to 2028/29. However, there are likely to be new urgent investment requirements during this period.

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. This aligns to our Corporate Plan objective of 'Investing in Our City' and will be delivered as part of our Libraries Strategy.

· Network of 13 libraries across the city;

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

· On target for over 1 million visits to libraries 2023-24. Pre Covid achieved 1.4 million visits;

· On target for over 1 million items loaned 2023-24. On target for over 400,000 e-audio, e-book and e-magazine loans in 2023-24On target for 1.5 million visits to library web pages 2023-24;

· 74% of all library transactions last year were online (i.e., joining, reservations and renewals);

· Volunteers will have contributed over 4,000 volunteer hours in 2023-24;

· Over 30,000 people will take part in libraries events, outreach and online activities in 2023-24;

· BIPC (Business and Intellectual Property Centre) Sussex has worked to deliver advice and information to businesses sand supported 1888 attendees in 2022/2023 (exceeding the target of 1002) and is on track to exceed targets again in 2023-24.

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 83% of the 3,200 food businesses in the city rated 3 or above on the national Food Hygiene Rating Scheme;

· Community Safety Casework Team, Anti-Social Behaviour and hate incidents –533 initial reports and enquiries dealt with between January and October 2023;

85% 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;

· Over 3000 noise complaints including both domestic and commercial requiring investigation in 2023;

· Obtained £104,000 worth of refunds and compensation for vulnerable consumers in 2023.

Communities, Equalities & Third Sector (CETS)

This team provides services squarely aligned to achieving the council plan’s objective of a fair, accessible and inclusive city, leading corporately on community engagement and collaboration, equality, diversity and inclusion and support to achieve a more sustainable, efficient and effective community and voluntary sector. All focused on achieving the council plan’s wider priorities of a city to be proud of, a health city where people thrive and a responsive council that listens to its communities and delivers positive result for the city.

Supporting community and voluntary sector organisations, projects and action that promotes inclusion and provide opportunities for everyone to grow and thrive;
Working alongside communities, listening and understanding their experiences and what needs changing, to tackle inequality and injustice, and alleviate hardship;
Supporting services – strategically and operationally - to change and adapt to deliver better outcomes for people who fair worse in the city because of their identity, their background, their socio-economic status or where they live;
Leading on strategic and systemic change through the delivery of the council’s Anti-Racism Strategy, and Accessible Strategy, and development of a new Gender Equality Strategy focusing on removing barriers, sometimes multiple, that exclude people from services;
Collaborating with the community and voluntary sector and our public sector partners to continue as a City of Sanctuary and participant in government resettlement programmes, welcoming and supporting refugees and migrants to settle and thrive.

Budget Strategy

The council plan 2023 to 2027 sets out a vision for a better Brighton & Hove for all. We want to become a city we can all be proud of, somewhere that is fair and inclusive and a healthy place where people can thrive. We aim to be a responsive council with well-run services. With Homes for Everyone firmly stated as a council plan priority, Housing Management and Housing Needs & Supply are working to a goal of achieving improved housing quality, increased housing supply and improved housing support for residents.

A Housing Strategy is being developed, for consultation in March 2024, which will set out how we will achieve these. The draft strategic priorities being:

Improve housing quality, safety and sustainability;
Deliver the homes our city needs;
Prevent homelessness and meet housing need;
Support improved health & wellbeing for residents and communities;
Provide resident focused housing services;

· Invest in building and fire safety to meet new duties under the Building Safety Act;

· Ensure the council complies with anticipated new social housing regulations;

· Complete post pandemic recovery including reducing backlog of housing repairs and the number of empty properties;

· Improve the energy performance of council homes through our capital works programme;

· Improve the sustainability of our housing stock;

· Optimise the local benefits and social value of our in-house repairs and maintenance service.

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 budget proposals 2024/25 reflect significant legislative and regulatory changes impacting social housing landlords following the Grenfell Tower tragedy. This includes substantial investment being undertaken in relation to building, health and fire safety compliance and in anticipation of the strengthened role of Regulator of Social Housing, ensuring adherence to their Consumer Standards. The proposed budget also continues to support investment in new housing supply and sustainable homes as well as in the work of our Tenancy, Repairs & Maintenance and Housing Investment and Asset Management services on behalf of our tenants and residents. The HRA Capital Investment Programme supports programmes of work that are necessary to meet the new regulations now coming into force and the requirements of these with investment of £57.955m over the next five years.

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. Savings were made in 2023-24 from closure of Mile Oak Library and a reduction in staffed days across the community libraries. 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 continues to be generated from the provision of conference rooms and the Booklover retail space in Jubilee Library and room rental in community libraries. These income sources are being extended with a pop-up shop in Hove Library and room rental in the BIPC producing additional income in 2024-25. There will be a further review of spaces and revised charges in conjunction with a substantial funding bid in 2024-25. 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. The Community Safety Strategy was approved in September 2020 and is updated annually 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. Demand for a range of community safety services from dealing with ASB to risks to community cohesion is increasing, and the new duties around tackling domestic abuse have also required the service to coordinate and collaborate with a wide range of partners.

The regulatory services are still dealing with the backlog of work arising from the pandemic so is focussing on 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 is focussed on the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on the community and voluntary sector with a rise in demand on their services both in terms of number of and the increasing complexity of need of their beneficiaries, combined with challenging fundraising and income generation climate. With limited resources, the focus is on investing strategically in the third sector to help it survive and thrive and be able to support the most vulnerable residents in the city. 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 experiences and concerns of Black and Racially Minoritised residents, refugees and migrants and making the city a more accessible and welcoming place. An Anti-Racism Strategy and an Accessible City Strategy were approved last year focused on making sustainable and systemic change over the next five years. A gender equality strategy will be developed over the next 12 months and the council will apply for re-accreditation as a City of Sanctuary.

Areas of focus for savings

Housing Needs & Supply : Phase 2 of the Homelessness Transformation Programme commenced in Q3 2023/24, and consultation on a new target operating structure will begin in February 2024. It is anticipated this would deliver £285k savings in 2024/25, while also improving the focus on homeless prevention and the consequent need to provide temporary accommodation.

The new commissioning cycle for the Single Homelessness Pathway has also provided the opportunity to review the services being delivered, in relation to need. These are non-statutory services. Only prioritising the elements that directly offer accommodation and/or have the greatest impact on reducing households in temporary accommodation has identified a further £521k of savings in 2024/25.

There remains a priority within Housing Needs to reduce the number of households in temporary accommodation, and (where provided) the cost of this and a substantial saving of over £1m will be required in 2024/25. A TA Strategy, incorporating actions to reduce households coming into TA; increase move-on from TA; improve rent collection in TA; secure better (cost) value TA; and reduce void turnaround is being worked to. However, this is within the wider national context of there now being more households in Temporary Accommodation than ever before, and unprecedented levels of demand.

We will progress a review of the arrangements with Seaside Homes to develop more cost-effective ways of providing temporary housing. And public consultation reviewing the existing Allocations Policy, is dues to commence in February 2024, with one intended aim being to increase incentives for households who do not take up Temporary Accommodation.

Housing Management : 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. There are no savings required in the HRA overall, however budget pressures in particular activities such as building, health and safety compliance works, means there will be impacts on other areas of the budget in the medium term.

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. Staffing is the highest area of spend for the service; a restructure of management levels and review of specialist IT roles will meet the savings targets for 2024-25. 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 could 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.

Further opportunities for income generation are being explored including co-working facilities and making better commercial use of space in all library buildings.

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 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 grant funding 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 have been identified for 2024/25 and future years. 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 new Housing strategy will inform investment needs in the medium term and there may be immediate investment needs arising from new policy initiatives such as the extension of 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.

The HRA Capital Programme seeks to provide substantial investment in the council’s housing stock and improve the quality of homes for 2024/25 for which the total budget to be approved is £57.955m. The proposed programme will take account of significant investment required as a result of the implementation of the Building Safety Act and Fire Safety (England) Regulations, including in relation to works requirements expected to arise from compliance surveys currently being undertaken on Large Panel System (LPS) and some other blocks. The Programme reflects the delivery of health & safety, sustainability, planned maintenance, improvement programmes and major capital projects to council housing informed by a recent stock condition survey and ongoing surveys of the council’s housing stock. An updated Asset Management Strategy is currently being developed.

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 and combining enforcement functions is being rolled out. 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. A review of this function is underway.

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. The success of a bid for substantial government grant investment to provide a co-working business based at Jubilee would provide the basis for a new approach in income generation.

Options for investing in CETS include:

· Step change improvement in the capture and application of equality data, embedding a high quality process as standard practice across key council services to help services ‘get it right first time’

· improve the co-ordination of refugee, migrant and asylum seeker work across the council to deliver better outcomes for the people and reduce wasted time and effort by services

· Pilot a corporate engagement team to design and deliver high quality engagement for council services to remove burden on frontline services and improve council’s reputation.

Supporting the Council’s Priorities

A city to be proud of.

· Develop strategies and business cases to provide genuinely affordable homes

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

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

· Tackle crime and antisocial behaviour in our city

A fair and inclusive city.

· 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’

· 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

· 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

· Improve council housing quality and sustainability

· Make better use of existing housing capacity

A healthy city where people thrive.

· Improve private rented housing quality and sustainability

· Reduce homelessness and rough sleeping

A responsive council with well-run services.

· Develop more customer-focussed and responsive housing advice and homelessness service

· Improve customer contact systems throughout the directorate

· Provide more accessible information on key services for residents

· Continue to monitor and improve customer responses

· Ensure equalities data is monitored and informs service improvement

Section	Service Area	Brief Summary of Budget Proposal/Strategy and Risks	Total Savings Proposed 2024/25
Housing, Neighbourhoods & Communities
Housing General Fund
Housing Services	Executive Director HNC and Business Support	No saving identified but service will be reviewed as part of overall 'Organisational Redesign' principles.	0
Housing Services	Housing Service wide saving	Service redesign - a new staffing structure is being designed as part of the Homelessness Transformation Programme. A 5% saving will be factored in, but at this stage there is uncertainty as to what impact this will have on staffing as it will be dependent on redesign and consultation. It is anticipated the impact could be approximately 13 FTE although 4 FTE are currently vacant. Incorporating other vacancies across the service should further minimise the risk of redundancies. See EIA 21.	285
Housing options	Homelessness - Housing Options and Homemove - supporting vulnerable households	Proposed savings will be part of the wider service redesign above.	0
Temporary Accommodation & Allocations	Temporary Accommodation (TA)	Proposed savings will be part of the wider service redesign above.	0
Temporary Accommodation & Allocations	Temporary Accommodation (TA)	Use of 20 vacant HRA properties for short term TA, saving on higher leasing costs.	70
Temporary Accommodation & Allocations	Temporary Accommodation (TA)	Reduction in TA numbers with a range of measures to convert TA placements into settled accommodation.	623
Temporary Accommodation & Allocations	Temporary Accommodation (TA)	Reduction in TA costs, by providing accommodation in the private rented sector (PRS). Landlord incentives will be less than the current costs of TA. .	453
Supported Accommodation	Commissioned Services for Single Homeless, including specialist services for Rough Sleepers	Review and reduce the range of services commissioned through Supported Accommodation. See EIA 22.	521
Housing Strategy & Development	Housing Strategy & Development - enabling & delivering increased housing supply & quality.	Proposed savings will be part of the wider service redesign above.	0
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.	Review of how staff costs are recharged to the HRA and the capital programme (incl. Disabled Facilities Grant).	50
Travellers	Travellers	Reduced security costs.	40
Housing General Fund Total		2,042
Libraries
Libraries	Library PFI	No saving opportunity identified in 2024/25 but the PFI is closely monitored for future opportunities.	0
Libraries	Staffing and operational costs	Library service restructure including deletion of the equivalent of approximately 3.8 FTE posts and changes of grading for some roles. Consultation and engagement will be undertaken with the aim of implementing by April 24.	129
Libraries	Bookstart	Bookstart offer no longer managed by Library Service - remaining budget not required.	3
Libraries	Income Generation	No savings identified as the service is currently not meeting income targets in most areas. The service is working to increase income from room rental, conferencing and the Booklover retail spaces, to offset the challenge of standard library charged services reducing (e.g. DVD and CD rental, PC use and printing)	0
Libraries Total		132
Communities, Equalities & Third Sector
Communities and Third Sector	Communities and Third Sector Development Commission	No Inflation uplift to be provided and a reduction in the spend on the Third Sector Commission of 10% in 2024/25 (subject to appropriate notice being given). See EIA 23	205
Communities and Third Sector	Community engagement team (GF proportion)	Increase funding of 1 x Sc 5 officer to 100% HRA funding.	10
Communities and Third Sector	Communities Fund	Cessation of the Communities Fund due to affordability constraints. See EIA 24.	302
Communities and Third Sector	Equality & Cohesion & Head of Service	25% recharge of Head of service to the grant funded resettlement programme. 25% reduction in initiatives budget, and voluntary reduction of the 3 FTE posts in the service to 30 hours thereby reducing staffing costs.	64
Communities and Third Sector	Healthwatch	No Budget saving available - contract at minimum price.	0
Communities and Third Sector	Refugee grant programmes	No saving opportunity identified as the service is wholly funded by ringfenced government grant.	0
Communities, Equalities & Third Sector Total		581
Safer Communities
Safer Communities	Environmental Health & Licensing	Increased license fees as per the report to committee 12/10/23. See EIA 25.	20
Safer Communities	Environmental Health & Licensing	Cessation of pest control service as it does not recover costs. See EIA 26.	38
Safer Communities	Prevent	No saving opportunity identified for 2024/25	0
Safer Communities	Environmental Protection	No saving opportunity identified for 2024/25	0
Safer Communities	Trading Standards	No saving opportunity identified for 2024/25	0
Safer Communities	Civil Contingencies	No saving opportunity identified for 2024/25	0
Safer Communities	Reducing Violence against Women and Girls Commissioning. (VAWG)	Economies through a review of commissioned services for Domestic Violence. See EIA 27.	120
Safer Communities	Casework Team	It is proposed to stop funding of 3rd Party Reporting Centres. See EIA 28.	60
Safer Communities Total		238
Housing, Neighbourhoods & Communities Total		2,993

Governance, People & Resources (GPR)

Budget Strategy and Savings Proposals 2024/25

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 and supporting implementation.

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

Corporate Communications and Public Relations

· A public and internal service that communicates information and other content about the council, it’s decisions, policies, priorities and services, to enable the council’s role as a civic leader, public service provider and employer.

· Provides a statutory “warning and informing” crisis communications service, working in partnership with emergency services to keep staff, residents and communities prepared and supported before, during and after major incidents and build greater community resilience.

· Manages the council’s communication channels with communities and supports delivery of council policy and services through informing, marketing, campaigning, consulting, brand management, media relations and reputation management. Internal communications and engagement that drives organisational change, supports the leadership to reach and communicate to staff, builds employee engagement with council priorities, provides staff with the news and information they need and promotes strategic initiatives to deliver the council’s People Promise including recruitment and retention activities.

· Graphic design and branding to manage the council’s identity so that services are clearly recognized, creating powerful, visual, branded content that stands out and reaches audiences across a range of media.

· Digital content design to publish essential information across our digital platforms, enable customer access to digital services on our website and intranet, ensure compliance with digital accessibility legislation and support council wide and service digital transformation

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

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 & referendums.

Finance and Internal Audit & Counter Fraud

Finance, including the statutory Section 151 Chief Financial Officer role, 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 5 service directorates including over 250 budget managers, as well as 66 schools, and provides Treasury Management for over £200m cash balances and associated 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 statutory adult and children’s safeguarding functions through the management of all Council Care, Court of Protection and Coroner Court proceedings;

· Supports the statutory enforcement functions of the Council through prosecution proceedings in the Criminal and Civil Courts (including Anti Social Behaviour, Blue Badge, Trading Standards and environmental breaches);

· Protects the Council from challenge, for example in relation to homelessness, housing & health & safety, employment and judicial review;

· Delivers commercial legal advice across property, procurement & planning & highways functions generating approx. £600k per annum of external income

· Supports the good governance of the council through advice to Members, officers and 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.

Customer, Modernisation & Performance Insight

· 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

· Processes approx. 2,200 Stage 1 complaints and 1,400 compliments and investigates approx. 210 Stage 2 complaints and assists the Ombudsman with approx. 100 cases.

· Managed the statutory responsibility for ensuring compliance with requests from external customers in relation to Freedom of Information (FOI), Subject Access Requests (SAR) and data breaches.

· Processes approx. 1700 FOI requests, 230 SAR requests, 700 disclosures, 260 data breaches

· The Performance Team drives the corporate and directorate planning and monitoring processes covering 5 Directorate Plans and 60 Corporate Key Performance Indicators.

· Manages the council’s Risk Management Framework which currently includes strategic and directorate level risks.

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

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

Policy, Partnerships & Scrutiny

· Leads on the creation and implementation of Council wide strategies and plans, including the Corporate Plan and Business Framework.

· Plays a key role in developing, guiding and internally promoting key strategies such as the Economic Strategy, Housing Strategy, Employment & Skills Plan, Local Transport Plan, and Carbon Neutral 2030 programme.

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

· Enables city-wide engagement with key partners including through running the City Management Board and Brighton & Hove Connected, through relationship management, events, and partnership development support, in addition to running thematic partnerships (such as the Transport Partnership and Health & Wellbeing Board) - supporting the council to be more outward facing.

· The Scrutiny function leads on the statutory health scrutiny function (HOSC).

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, Environmental, Social & Governance strategy, 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 1 April 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 Household Support Funds 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.

· 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 Policy & Communications: The Policy & Communication teams have undergone respective restructures to reduce team size to meet budget cuts. Further savings will be made which will reduce the level of support that can be provided to services and limit the ability to meet the council's partnership, communication and engagement ambitions. The Policy team will deliver further savings to the organisation through developing plans and strategies for service areas that would otherwise be out commissioned to consultants at a higher cost. The Communications team will deliver further savings to the organisation through managing a single online engagement platform for the council, in place of service areas commissioning separate systems.

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 which will accelerate over the next 4 years subject to no further delays to the transfer. 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.

Customer, Modernisation & Performance: It is proposed to review the service based on priorities and customer demand which will enable compliance within the information rights team. A significant element of the service is not core funded, being supported by the Modernisation Fund.

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 for increases in 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 be likely to provide the best solution and opportunities for efficiencies in future. However, the cost v benefit of an ERP need to be assured and therefore other ‘best of breed’ options will be kept open through the procurement process which has commenced and will be resourced through capital investment, including through to implementation of any procured replacement.

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 cost 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. However, it should be noted that the Orbis Partnership has generated cashable savings of £12m over the last 3 years which were highly unlikely to be achievable from outside of the partnership.

Legal Services is struggling to recruit qualified staff into new roles and has been unable to recruit to a number of lawyer roles resulting in high locum costs. A recently approved Market Supplement will cost around £0.400m but will ensure the council is able to recruit and retain skilled legal expertise across a number of fields including children’s legal work, contract law, employment law and democratic and constitutional matters.

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.

During 2024-25 the Policy & Communications team will conduct a strategic review of income generation opportunities.

Supporting the Council’s Priorities

GPR services support and facilitate other services to deliver against the 4 Council Plan priorities, including the aim of being a responsive council with well-run services at both a strategic and operational level. Helping the council to develop robust financial strategies, workforce plans, digital customer strategies, conduct effective communication, engagement and partnership working, 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 be proud of

· The Policy team supports the development of underpinning plans and strategies, such as the Housing Strategy and Economic Strategy.

· The Communications team plays a key place-shaping role in delivering this outcome including priority areas such as waste minimisation, promoting sustainability, publicising and consulting on regeneration and major developments, promoting cultural events and city travel.

· 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 fair and inclusive city

The Policy & Communications team will refresh our strategic approach to community engagement, including our approach to digital engagement and consultation – enabling a more agile approach to listening and responding.
The Policy & Communications team will work directly with communities to hear their ideas to improve the city through the council’s Reimagine engagement programme
The Policy team will reinvigorate partnership working across the city to support collaboration across city systems and drive positive change
The Policy team will publish a Cost-of-Living Action Plan to set out how the council will help tackle the challenges exacerbated by the cost of living crisis
The Communications team has a key role implementing anti-racism and accessible city strategies through internal and external communications.

· 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 healthy city where people thrive

· The Policy team support the development of the Employment and Skills Plan

· The Policy team will deliver the scrutiny function for the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee and oversee the Health and Wellbeing Board

· Communications is an essential part of promoting health and wellbeing in the city and enabling behaviour change.

· 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 responsive council with well run services

· The Policy & Communications team will help the council to proactively listen and respond to resident concerns, increase the use of digital channels of communication and enable collaboration with partners to support prevention and demand management.

· 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 to develop the annual Schools Budget across the 4 blocks of the Dedicated Schools Grant.

· The Customer, Modernisation & Performance Insight service is central to corporate governance driving improvements in customer experience, modernisation and performance and risk management

· 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.

· 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.

Section	Service Area	Brief Summary of Budget Proposal/Strategy and Risks	Total Savings Proposed 2024/25
Section	Service Area	Brief Summary of Budget Proposal/Strategy and Risks	£'000
Governance, People & Resources
Chief Executive Monitoring Office
Chief Executive & Monitoring Officer	Chief Executive, Monitoring Officer and support.	No saving identified but the service will be reviewed as part of overall 'Organisational Redesign' principles.	0
Chief Executive Monitoring Office Total			0
Policy, Communications & Leadership Support Office
Policy Partnership & Scrutiny	The PPS team runs a policy, partnership, strategy and scrutiny service - priorities include setting the city vision and strategy, council plan, service strategy development (e.g. housing strategy), research and policy development (e.g. Cost of Living action plan), overseeing strategic cross city partnership working (e.g. the City Management Board, Brighton & Hove Connected) as well as running thematic partnerships (e.g. Transport Partnership, Health & Wellbeing Board), in addition to fulfilling a scrutiny function (HOSC).	The service is experiencing a budget pressure that needs to be managed as this is a non-statutory function. A small reduction in resources is required which will impact the team’s ability to support the council's partnership and engagement ambitions and will reduce support to service areas.	0
Leadership and Support Office	The Leadership Support office ensures the efficient and effective running of the Leadership Office, ensuring effective systems and processes are in place to provide strategic and operational support.	No saving identified but the service will be reviewed as part of overall 'Organisational Redesign' principles.	0
Communications	The Communications team supports delivery of council policy and services and the external relations of the whole council through strategic communications and public relations. Functions include: campaigns, marketing and copywriting; internal communications; media relations; social media management; digital content design; consultation; emergency and crisis communications.	There is currently a pressure on the budget for the service that needs to be managed as this is a non-statutory function. However, reducing resources in the Comms team budget will potentially increase budget pressures for services, weaken organisational resilience (e.g. to manage crisis and emergency comms) and mean that service needs cannot be fully met, reducing the impact of delivery. The proposed change to the service to manage pressures (and provide some saving), will likely lead to increased costs for other service areas and the loss of supporting systems (such as media monitoring and social listening). However, these costs are more easily managed and mitigated when spread across a wide range of services.	11
Graphic Design Tean	Creating visual and accessible communications across digital and print media and animations to enable effective communications by the council and it's services to target audiences. The team also manage and protect the council's corporate brand guidelines to ensure consistency, recognition and positive reputation across it's communications and customer interactions with citizens, stakeholders and staff.	The team successfully operate on a completely self-funding business model through internal recharges and income from external clients such as NHS partners. The team are paid through competitive charges for every creative design and print project needed by services or external customers and this model is now being replicated by other local authorities. The team are currently scoping how this business model can be scaled to part-fund the corporate communications team.	13
Policy & Communications Total			24
Legal & Democratic Services
Democratic & Civic Services	Democratic & Civic Services	A review of discretionary/statutory services highlighted that support to the Leadership and Political Groups is flagged as a Business Critical but non-statutory, discretionary function and therefore its affordability must be considered in the current financial context. A reduction of this support is therefore proposed.	194
Legal Services – Commercial	Legal Services – Commercial	Proposal: Remove a vacant Lawyer (Commercial) post from structure. Risk: High demand and inexperience in this area could impact on service delivery and ability to complete commercial work within reasonable deadlines.	68
Legal Services – Litigation & Safeguarding	Legal Services – Litigation & Safeguarding	Proposal: Remove a vacant Lawyer (Litigation & Safeguarding) post from the structure. Risk: High demand in this area. May impact on service delivery and the ability to initiate/undertake litigation in-house. £1k increased charge to Public Health for legal services.	73
Members Allowances	Members Allowances	No saving opportunity identified for 2024/25.	0
Legal & Democratic Services Total			335
Elections & Land Charges
Elections	Elections	Proposal: Remove a vacant apprentice post from the Team Structure. Currently vacant and current Team working well following redesign.	20
Land Charges	Land Charges	No saving opportunity identified for 2024/25.	0
Elections & Land Charges Total			20
Customer Modernisation & Performance insight
Customer Experience & feedback	Customer Experience & feedback	No saving identified but the service will be reviewed as part of overall 'Organisational Redesign' principles.	0
Customer and Performance	Customer and Performance	No saving identified but the service will be reviewed as part of overall 'Organisational Redesign' principles.	0
Corporate Programme Management Office	Corporate Programme Management Office	No saving identified but the service will be reviewed as part of overall 'Organisational Redesign' principles.	0
Information Rights Team	Information Rights Team	Deletion of a vacant Information Rights Case Officer post. Currently the organisation is not complying with all ICO expectations and this will further add to compliance risks. There may be a risk to reputation if the demand continues to rise and the compliance rate falls significantly below the ICO expectations.	35
Customer Modernisation & Performance insight Total			35
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.	Review the balance of support to services based on a further refinement of the risk-based approach to monitoring and advice. This will see some Budget Holders supported by a lower staffing FTE through deletion of a vacancy with a focus on prioritising support to higher risk, more complex budgets. Delivery Risk: Key risk is to customer service where budget holders will have reduced support and access to advice. There is also a potential impact on meeting deadlines such as monitoring timelines, grant claim or other government return deadlines. There will also be a review of the capitalisation of support costs for the capital programme to align with other corporate and service charges to capital schemes following the very substantial increase in both the size, complexity and number of schemes in recent years and the associated increase in monitoring requirements, including advice to and monitoring of capital bids and awards.	144
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'.	No saving opportunity identified for 2024/25.	0
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'.	No saving opportunity identified for 2024/25.	0
Finance Total			144
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'.	No saving opportunity identified for 2024/25.	2
Procurement (Mobo) Total			2
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	Proposal: reduction in hours for posts permanently funded by City Environment Management and Health & Safety (supported by the service) - work allocation within CEM will be reprioritised accordingly. Delivery risk: Some impact on capacity on a permanent basis.	7
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	Proposal - Deletion of part-time vacant Learning & OD consultant for Families, Children & Learning, and integration of the work into a full time consultant role by increasing a 0.8 consultant FTE to 1.0 FTE. Saving of £27k, plus £3k reduction in operating budgets. Delivery risk - reduction in capacity to progress training commissioning.	30
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	Proposal - Deletion of vacant Wellbeing Manager role. The wellbeing aspects of the role that relate to protecting staff will transfer to Health and Safety, the Occupational Health and EAP contract management will transfer to the Contract Manager, with operational support for the contract being provided by the Advisory Service. Delivery risk - impact on workloads across HR, particularly on resources that are required to support change and transformation across the organisation. Second proposal - Deletion of a vacant post from advisory, including the regrading of a scale 6 post to SO1/2. Delivery risk - Impact on resource available to manage change and transformation. Third proposal - reduction in Business Partnering hours by 0.4 FTE in lieu of a reduction in hours by team member. Delivery risk - reduction in resource that will be needed to support the organisation to manage change and transformation	139
Trades Union Support	Trade Union facility time to support consultation, negotiation and individual case work across the council	Proposal - Deletion of 1 FTE post from each recognised Trade Union to bring costs more in line with authority averages. The budget for one post sits as part of the HR budget and therefore a saving of 1 FTE post shows on this budget line. Delivery risk: Requires effective consultation and engagement with Trade Unions to help understand how casework can be managed. Second proposal - cease payment to GMB for accommodation as council accommodation is available if required.	46
Recruitment Team		No saving opportunity identified for 2024/25.	0
HR & Organisational Development Total			222
IT&D (Mobo)
Contracts	Software contracts for Council IT hardware, software and infrastructure.	No saving opportunity identified for 2024/25 due to pressure on budgets but improved value for money from all contracts is sought when renewals or re-procurements are due.	0
Staffing	Staff Budget	Current vacancies were reviewed and the lowest impact /lowest risk posts identified for permanent deletion. Five vacant posts will be deleted as follows: 1 x Analytics Platform Lead - impacts to the ability to create and amend business intelligence and insight reports and dashboards, possible delays to the roll-out and adoption of Power BI). 1 x Apprentice within the cyber and IG compliance team - impacts to career opportunities and capacity to respond to data compliance and cyber resilience matters). 2 x ICT Project Officer - impacts include removal of junior project co-ordination capacity, greater workload on remaining project managers, further delays in starting and undertaking projects. 1 x Senior Technician - impacts to speed of device (laptops etc) deployment and fixes). The overall impact is a further deterioration of the IT&D core service offer: support call resolution and project work will take longer; capability gaps will be created exacerbating gaps created during previous savings; heightened reliance upon capital /project funding for agency resource to carry out specialist work; reduced operational resilience and heightened risks of service failures resulting from single points of failure and reduced cover during peak leave periods or unplanned absences such as sick leave.	190
Other	Misc. operational expenditure incl. hardware, software and subscriptions	Target reduction of £25k from a contingency budget held to meet unplanned, urgent procurements of hardware and software. This reduces the council's resilience and ability to respond to unforeseen demands for hardware or software resources. Also, a potential target saving of £19k linked to a review and upward adjustment of recharges to Public Health for IT&D goods and services.	44
Income	Traded income and service recharges	Explore all possible options to ensure the costs of the service are covered by the income received from schools, and to remove the need for the general fund to subsidise the service by achieving a £415k saving.	415
IT&D (Mobo) Total			649
Welfare Revenue & 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.	No saving opportunity identified in 2024/25. Significant savings were delivered during the period the service was within the Orbis Partnership. Future savings are dependent on decisions around the future of the council's major corporate financial systems.	0
Corporate Debt Team	Overseeing and monitoring the overall organisations debt performance. Targeted data analysis, training and intervention to improve performance.	No saving opportunity identified in 2024/25. This small team ensures effective oversight and recovery of debt to minimise arrears and losses.	0
Payroll & Pensions	Administration of officer renumerations and retired officer renumerations.	No saving opportunity identified in 2024/25. This service has been and remains under severe pressure. Future savings are dependent on decisions around the future of the council's major corporate financial systems and necessary improvements to workflow automation.	0
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	No saving identified but the service will be reviewed as part of overall 'Organisational Redesign' principles.	0
Housing Benefit Administration	Statutory administration of national and local benefit schemes	No saving opportunity identified in 2024/25. This service has been and remains under severe pressure with significant backlogs. Efforts are focused on reducing backlogs and improving customer response times.	0
Council Tax Collection Teams	Statutory collection of council tax income	No saving opportunity identified in 2024/25. This service has been and remains under severe pressure with significant backlogs. Efforts are focused on reducing backlogs and improving customer response times.	0
Business Rates Collection Team	Statutory collection of business rates income. Bailiffs service also included on this line.	No saving opportunity identified in 2024/25. This service has been and remains under severe pressure with significant backlogs. Efforts are focused on reducing backlogs and improving customer response times.	0
Council Tax S13A discounts	Locally funded section 13A council tax discounts awarded for care leavers, difficult to let properties, and exceptional/unexpected situations, such as flooding).	No saving opportunity identified as the budget supports key council priorities.	0
Local Welfare Assistance Schemes	Awards of discretionary benefits and cost of living support schemes to lower income households.	Review the funding of welfare support resources to consider the provisional ending/reduction of the Household Support Fund which current provides all the funding for discretionary awards by this team. Without a significant discretionary fund to distribute, the remaining welfare resources will concentrate on prevention solutions i.e.. Welfare Advisory work, working in collaboration with other directorates and CVS partners. Delivery Risk: Welfare support staff provide support to various cohorts of residents including those in hardship, those in need of welfare rights support, those affected by the Benefit Cap and other benefit related issues. While CVS support and resources are available, the overall quantum of support across the council and CVS would be reduced.	256
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.	No saving opportunity identified - externally funded service.	0
Welfare Advisory	Specialist advice given to maximising income and claiming and appealing entitlements. Holistic solutions for low income households.	No saving opportunity identified. Service enables optimisation of welfare benefits which has financial benefits for the council.	0
WRBS Management & Operations Support	Admin and Operations support team.	Reduction of senior management team by deleting a vacant Benefits Manager role. Delivery Risk: Achievable through management reshuffling but results in the loss of an experienced, senior resource which will impact service delivery, organisation and performance.	71
Welfare Revenue & Business Support Total			327
Contribution to Orbis
Orbis Services	Orbis Services 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 and Insurance. The contribution is based on an agreed contribution ratio (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).	No saving opportunity identified for 2024/25. Reduction of Orbis budgets can only be through agreement with partners. The services are kept under annual review but no saving is proposed at this time.	0
Contribution to Orbis Total			0
Governance, People & Resources Total			1,758

Section	Service Area	Brief Summary of Budget Proposal/Strategy and Risks	Total Savings Proposed 2024/25
Corporately-held Budgets
Bulk Insurance Premia
Insurance	Premiums & Excesses/deductibles/self insurance		0
Bulk Insurance Premia Total		0
Capital Financing Costs
Capital Financing Costs	Debt and investment interest		0
Capital Financing Costs Total		0
Levies & Precepts
Levies & Precepts	Levies & Precepts including: Sussex Inshore Fisheries & Conservation Area, Environment Agency and Enclosure Committees		0
Levies & Precepts Total		0
Unallocated Contingency & Risk Provisions
Contingency & Risk Provisions	Risk Provisions & other contingency items		0
Unallocated Contingency & Risk Provisions Total		0
Unringfenced Grants
Unringfenced Grants	Unringfenced grants including: S31 Business Rates Retention (BRR) Scheme, New Homes Bonus and DLUHC Services Grant.		0
Unringfenced Grants Total		0
Housing Benefit Subsidy
Housing Benefits	The costs and subsidy income relating to payment of Rent Allowances and Rent Rebates under Housing Benefit regulations. Also includes income received from recovery of overpayments.		0
Housing Benefit Subsidy Total		0
Other Corporate Items
Corporate Pension Costs	Corporate pension costs - historic retirement decisions		0
Contribution from Reserves	Budgeted contribution from reserves to support revenue budget.		0
Other corporate budgets	Budget for annual unallocated income (e.g. returned cheques).		0
VFM Savings - Senior Management	2023/24 council wide saving aimed at achieving a further management reduction or delayering across the council's senior management tiers.	A significant programme of Organisational Redesign will be undertaken in the context of the authority's financial context and needing to operate with a lower level overall staffing. While staffing proposals are contained elsewhere within services, this saving will focus on organisational design principles that will review management spans and layers, the efficiency of administrative and business support roles, and potential rationalisation and efficiencies across around 11 functional areas, for example, commissioning and contract management and customer service roles.	2,475
Other Corporate Items Total		2,475
Corporately-held Budgets Total		2,475

	Year 1 Budget	Year 2 Budget	Year 3 Budget	Year 4 Budget	Year 5 Budget
Capital Investment Programme	2024/25	2025/26	2026/27	2027/28	2028/29
	£000	£000	£000	£000	£000

Approved Schemes
Families, Children & Learning	6,986	9,112	-	-	-
Health & Adult Social Care	5,200	3,703	-	-	-
Economy, Environment & Culture	67,393	30,872	4,000	2,500	2,500
Housing, Neighbourhood & Communities - GF	1,849	500	500	500	500
Governance, People & Resources	6,680	2,320	1,570	40	40
Housing, Neighbourhood & Communities - HRA	35,557	-	-	-	-

Identified Schemes Not Yet approved
Families, Children & Learning	4,750	4,700	4,650	4,600	4,600
Health & Adult Social Care	500	500	500	500	500
Economy, Environment & Culture	23,792	36,164	16,500	12,674	15,237
Housing, Neighbourhood & Communities - GF	2,000	1,000	1,000	1,000	1,000
Governance, People & Resources	3,331	260	260	1,000	1,000
Housing, Neighbourhood & Communities - HRA	53,432	70,806	60,281	60,945	63,091

Total	211,470	159,937	89,261	83,759	88,468

Funded by:
Government Grants (non ringfenced)	16,890	18,112	12,950	8,900	9,080
Government Grants (ringfenced)	34,538	10,625	2,180	2,180	2,000
Capital Receipts	21,576	5,983	4,550	3,590	2,500
Capital Reserves	693	-	-	-	-
Specific Reserves	1,942	1,000	1,000	1,000	1,000
External Contributions	6,992	2,614	-	2,000	455
Direct Revenue Funding - General Fund	1,070	500	500	500	500
HRA Revenue Contribution to Capital	16,516	17,345	18,255	19,098	20,017
Borrowing	111,253	103,758	49,826	46,491	52,916

Total Funding	211,470	159,937	89,261	83,759	88,468

	Year 1 Budget	Year 2 Budget	Year 3 Budget	Year 4 Budget	Year 5 Budget
Families, Children & Learning	2024/25	2025/26	2026/27	2027/28	2028/29
	£000	£000	£000	£000	£000

Approved Schemes
Brighton Youth Centre	1,300	-	-	-	-
Schools Investment	2,000	6,112	-	-	-
Universal Free School Meals	192	-	-	-	-
High Needs Provision Capital	2,534	3,000	-	-	-
Education Capital Maintenance 2023/24	364	-	-	-	-
Impulse Education Management System	95	-	-	-	-
Cardinal Newman 4G Pitch & Changing Rooms	500	-	-	-	-

Identified Schemes Not Yet approved
Education Capital Maintenance Grant	3,750	3,700	3,650	3,600	3,600
Devolved Formula Capital Grant	500	500	500	500	500
Structural Maintenance Contribution	500	500	500	500	500
Brighton Youth Centre	-	-	-	-	-
Total Families, Children & Learning	11,736	13,812	4,650	4,600	4,600

	Year 1 Budget	Year 2 Budget	Year 3 Budget	Year 4 Budget	Year 5 Budget
Health & Adult Social Care	2024/25	2025/26	2026/27	2027/28	2028/29
	£000	£000	£000	£000	£000

Approved Schemes
Knoll House Building Works	5,200	3,703	-	-	-

Identified Schemes Not Yet approved
Better Care Funding - Capital Grant	500	500	500	500	500
Total Health & Adult Social Care	5,700	4,203	500	500	500

	Year 1 Budget	Year 2 Budget	Year 3 Budget	Year 4 Budget	Year 5 Budget
Economy, Environment & Culture	2024/25	2025/26	2026/27	2027/28	2028/29
	£000	£000	£000	£000	£000

Approved Schemes
City Development & Regeneration
New England House Project Support	164	-	-	-	-
Falmer Released Land Project Support	12	-	-	-	-
Redevelopment of King Alfred Swimming Pool	81	-	-	-	-
Madeira Terraces Regeneration	5,941	3,500	-	-	-
Madeira Terraces Crowd Funding Contribution	456	-	-	-	-
Madeira Terraces Regeneration - Carbon Neutral Fund	290	-	-	-	-
Madeira Terraces Bequest Funding	30	-	-	-	-
Black Rock Enabling Works	400	-	-	-	-
City Environmental Management
Downland Initiative Programme	10	10	-	-	-
Public Conveniences	1,922	-	-	-	-
On-Street and Communal Bin Infrastructure	1,000	250	-	-	-
Pavilion and Mess Room Refurbishment Programme	1,400	1,250	-	-	-
Hollingdean Deport Office Accommodation	2,228	300	-	-	-
CNF - Improving WEEE recycling	36	-	-	-	-
CNF - Improving the Communal Bin System	395	395	-	-	-
Stanmer Pond Restoration & Access Improvement	76	-	-	-	-
Playground Refurbishment programme 2021-2025	608	-	-	-	-
Parks and Open Spaces Investment	1,555	1,552	-	-	-
CNF - Woodland Creation Scheme	135	-	-	-	-
CNF - St Ann's Well Café Sustainable Improvements	74	-	-	-	-
Procurement of City Fleet Vehicles	2,500	2,500	2,500	2,500	2,500
Culture, Tourism & Sport
Royal Pavilion Estate (Phase 1)	1,486	-	-	-	-
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery Works	1,432	-	-	-	-
Royal Pavilion Estate Development (Phase 2 Gardens)	4,700	1,320	-	-	-
Seafront Railings Upgrade	-	170	-	-	-
Levelling Up Fund - Kingsway to the Sea	7,143	-	-	-	-
King Alfred Main Pool Reinforcement	674	-	-	-	-
Prince Regent Investment	700	-	-	-	-
Withdean Sports Complex Swimming Pool	451	-	-	-	-
Brighton Centre Essential Maintenance	1,000	1,000	1,000	-	-
Property
Hollingdean Depot Health & Safety	10	-	-	-	-
Statutory DDA Access Works Fund	40	-	-	-	-
Legionella Works	22	-	-	-	-
Madeira Terrace Structural Repairs	196	-	-	-	-
Solar Panels Corporate Buildings	678	-	-	-	-
Workstyles Phase 4	271	200	-	-	-
Phoenix House Investment	693	-	-	-	-
Moulsecoomb Hub and Housing Development	4,200	8,000	-	-	-
CNF - Moulsecoomb Hub and Housing Sustainability Measures	100	-	-	-	-
CNF - Schools Energy Efficiency Reinvestment fund	400	-	-	-	-
CNF - Carbon Reduction Measures to Operational Buildings	1,267	1,000	500	-	-
Hove Town Hall Planned Maintenance	50	-	-	-	-
Industrial House Planned Maintenance	20	-	-	-	-
Imperial Arcade Planned Maintenance	210	-	-	-	-
Mile Oak Community Centre Planned Maintenance	105	-	-	-	-
South Downs Riding School – Environmental Management	12	-	-	-	-
Commercial Asset Investment Fund	750	-	-	-	-
Transport
Brighton Marina to River Adur Works	100	-	-	-	-
Integrated Transport Schemes (LTP)	2,000	-	-	-	-
Structural Maintenance of Carriageways (LTP)	413	-	-	-	-
Street Lighting Maintenance (LTP)	1,000	400	-	-	-
Valley Gardens Phase 1&2 (LTP)	92	-	-	-	-
Valley Gardens Phase 3 (LTP)	5,824	5,000	-	-	-
Hove Station Footbridge	500	-	-	-	-
Active Travel Fund - Tranche 2	230	-	-	-	-
Brighton Bikeshare Replacement Programme	215	-	-	-	-
Citywide Strategic Transport Model	205	-	-	-	-
Seafront Heritage Lighting Renewal Programme	1,562	-	-	-	-
Active Travel Fund - Tranche 3	1,204	-	-	-	-
Bus Service Improvement Scheme	2,556	2,100	-	-	-
Active Travel Fund - Tranche 4	2,994	-	-	-	-
Safer Road Fund Round 3 - A2010 Brighton	300	-	-	-	-
Low Traffic Neighbourhoods – Elm Grove / Queens Park Road	350	-	-	-	-
Zebra 2 - Zero Emissions Buses	1,925	1,925	-	-	-

Identified Schemes Not Yet approved
Weekly Food Waste Collections Capital Grant	2,444	-	-	-	-
Strategic Investment Fund	150	250	250	250	250
New England House - City Deal	2,068	8,000	-	-	-
Royal Pavilion Estate Development (Phase 3 Museum)	-	-	4,000	-	-
Volks Railway Disabled Access Carriage	100	-	-	-	-
CNF - Levelling Up Fund - Kingsway to the Sea	700	-	-	-	-
Withdean Sports Complex Swimming Pool	-	5,349	-	-	-
Asset Management Fund	1,000	1,000	1,000	1,000	1,000
Planned Maintenance of operational buildings	1,500	1,500	1,500	1,500	1,500
Planned Maintenance - Social Services Buildings	500	500	500	500	500
Commercial Asset Investment Fund (CAIF)	-	750	750	750	750
Local Transport Plan - Capital Grant	4,538	4,500	4,500	4,500	4,500
Pothole Action Fund - Capital Grant	1,455	500	500	500	500
Incentive Funding - Highways Capital Grant	364	300	300	300	300
Highways Maintenance Funding - Network North	413	-	-	-	-
Marina to River Adur Coast Protection Works	7,960	10,000	1,000	-	-
A27 Junction Improvements	600	3,515	2,200	3,374	5,937
Total Economy, Environment & Culture	91,185	67,036	20,500	15,174	17,737

	Year 1 Budget	Year 2 Budget	Year 3 Budget	Year 4 Budget	Year 5 Budget
Housing, Neighbourhood & Communities - GF	2024/25	2025/26	2026/27	2027/28	2028/29
	£000	£000	£000	£000	£000

Approved Schemes
Disabled Facilities Grants	317	-	-	-	-
LDV On-Going Costs - Community Homes (B&HSCH)	500	500	500	500	500
Warm Safe Homes Grant	331	-	-	-	-
Travellers Site Fund	505	-	-	-	-
Housing IT Strategy	196	-	-	-	-

Identified Schemes Not Yet approved
Disabled Facilities Grant (Better Care Funding) - Capital Grant	2,000	1,000	1,000	1,000	1,000
Total Housing, Neighbourhood & Communities - GF	3,849	1,500	1,500	1,500	1,500

	Year 1 Budget	Year 2 Budget	Year 3 Budget	Year 4 Budget	Year 5 Budget
Governance, People & Resources	2024/25	2025/26	2026/27	2027/28	2028/29
	£000	£000	£000	£000	£000

Approved Schemes
Digital Organisation Programme	1,500	100	100	-	-
IT Equipment for Members	40	40	40	40	40
Laptop Refresh Programme	1,950	1,000	250	-	-
IT&D Data Programme	100	-	-	-	-
IT&D Projects	310	250	250	-	-
Digital Data & Technology Investment	2,380	930	930	-	-
Electronic Document Management Replacement System	400	-	-	-	-

Identified Schemes Not Yet approved
Managing Staff Changes (Restructure / Redundancy)	1,000	-	-	-	-
Modernisation Enablers	1,050	-	-	-	-
Invest to Save Plans	571	-	-	-	-
IT&D Data Programme	260	260	260	-	-
Local Area Network Hardware Refresh	450	-	-	-	-
IT&D Future Fund	-	-	-	1,000	1,000
Total Governance, People & Resources	10,011	2,580	1,830	1,040	1,040

	Year 1 Budget	Year 2 Budget	Year 3 Budget	Year 4 Budget	Year 5 Budget
Housing, Neighbourhood & Communities - HRA	2024/25	2025/26	2026/27	2027/28	2028/29
	£000	£000	£000	£000	£000

Approved Schemes
Windlesham Close	1,771	-	-	-	-
Upgrading Residential CCTV Systems	80	-	-	-	-
Lifts Refurbishment	482	-	-	-	-
New Build Refurbishment (Converting Spaces in Existing Buildings)	1,971	-	-	-	-
Structural Repairs	5,972	-	-	-	-
House Purchase Scheme	9,756	-	-	-	-
Moulsecoomb Hub - Housing	8,408	-	-	-	-
HRA Owned Playgrounds Refurbishment	165	-	-	-	-
Palace Place Redevelopment	1,626	-	-	-	-
Frederick Street	384	-	-	-	-
Rotherfield Crescent	1,225	-	-	-	-
Eastergate Road	66	-	-	-	-
Kubic Apartments	209	-	-	-	-
EICR Compliance Programme	3,444	-	-	-	-

Identified Schemes Not Yet approved
HRA Capital Investment Programme 2024-25	53,432	-	-	-	-
HRA Capital Investment Programme 2025-26	-	70,806	-	-	-
HRA Capital Investment Programme 2026-27	-	-	60,281	-	-
HRA Capital Investment Programme 2027-28	-	-	-	60,945	-
HRA Capital Investment Programme 2028-29	-	-	-	-	63,091
Total Housing, Neighbourhood & Communities - HRA	88,989	70,806	60,281	60,945	63,091