Agenda item - Chair's Communications

165.1      The Chair provided the following Communications:

“Before moving to today's business, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on some of the brilliant work that has gone over gone on over the past months since our last Cabinet meeting and to pay thanks and give gratitude to our officers and our hard working members.

To have achieved some really positive results for the city, we announced today that half a million journeys have now been made on Beyrl bikes. This week we have refurbished and reopened Goldstone Villas public toilet in Hove, making it more accessible and family friendly. We have contracted a design team for the planned swimming pool at Withdean. We've announced free swimming for all children in Brighton and Hove for the year ahead and we've opened new tennis courts at Hove Beach Park.

We've launched a new Sea Front Development Board chaired by local resident, Lord Steve Bassam, which will help us to accelerate the type of investment, ideas and planning needed to secure the future of our iconic sea front for residents and visitors alike. The Madeira Terraces restoration is well under way. We've announced funding to restore our sea front heritage lighting, and we've passed a balanced budget for our Council last month which ringfences additional funding for street cleansing to support our ongoing effort to bring our city back to its sparkling best.

We've launched an opt out scheme for residents who would rather weed their own pavement than have the Council do it, demonstrating that we are a listening Council, and we've worked to increase consensus on school admission changes which were passed at our special Council meeting last month with support from Green and independent councillors. National offer day earlier this month for secondary schools confirmed that our trailblazing policy to give priority to children on free school meals in our admission arrangements, is already having an impact with nearly 100 children using the policy to secure a preference school for September 2025, helping to rebalance the attendance of children on free school meals among our secondary schools in the city.

This is the first cabinet meeting since International Women's Day and so it seems only right to reflect on the fantastic events organised by Varndean School last Friday by their feminist society, for which I was an honoured panel guest. I was really inspired by the work being done by young women at Varndean that I met to support girls in primary school, raise awareness of women's issues within their school and advocate for uniform changes.

During International Women's Month, as I'm now calling it, we reflect on the national average gender pay gap, which still exists in this country of 13.1%, in favour of men. I'm pleased to say that our median gender pay gap at Brighton and Hove City Council is 3% in favour of women. Women also make up 62.7% of staff in our upper pay bands. But we know that women are not equal until all women are equal, and so we pledge to redouble our effort to close the Council's race and disability pay gap. We've seen significant progress in these pay gaps in the last 18 months, but there is still much more to do.

Moving on to today's agenda, I'm delighted to see our report on plans for local government reorganisation and devolution for Sussex and Brighton and Hove and to welcome on you, Cabinet advisor on the same Councillor, John Hewitt.

The report sets out our considered interim proposal to the government's local government reorganisation proposals and the next steps in establishing a Mayoral Combined Authority for Sussex and Brighton.

These are exciting times, not only for our city but the wider Sussex region. They will mean more local decision making, more money and power flowing down the A23 from Westminster to Brighton and Hove and a greater say for local people on decisions which directly affect our communities.

In line with our commitment to listening and transparency, we held an initial short engagement exercise with residents in the time available before this Friday's deadline and our interim response is shaped by that feedback.

We are therefore suggesting to government that our region could operate with up to five unitary authorities of relatively equal size, and all represented alongside a new mayor on our new strategic authority.

Assuming our approach is discussed and approved today, we will then test our thinking against data and evidence as we work with our neighbouring authorities and develop final plans ahead of September's government deadline.

I want to now turn to an item on today's agenda, which I know is causing much anxiety and upset for those affected. New England House is a beacon of creativity, a hub of talent to the and a community who call it home.

It's an example of the types of businesses that make Brighton and Hove the renown renowned Centre for Arts and Culture that it is.

Unfortunately, however, as the report coming before Cabinet today says, for the necessary improvements to be made to this much-loved building to make it safe and fit for the future traders and tenants in the building will need to leave. We will support traders where we can, helping them find alternative accommodation and ensuring that the amazing businesses that are currently resident in this building will continue to thrive. We will also be preparing and communicating in the coming weeks a compensation offer for all current tenants.

I also this afternoon want to put on record an apology on behalf of this Council to everyone impacted by this situation.

We are taking both the actions that we need to take now, but we are also going to do the learning from how this has been previously dealt with and we're going to take that extremely seriously. We are conducting an internal review which has highlighted areas of learning for this Council and several actions, including a priority programme of training on contract management and project management for officers and guidance on how issues are raised and escalated within the organisation.

A new approach to be developed in relation to the retention of project documentation and closer management of fire safety concerns, including consulting with East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service and our own fire consultant. These actions have been taken forward by officers and going forward, we want to work collaboratively with all tenants of the building and together ensure that we have the safe workspace we need to support our businesses.

That have worked for New England House. We know that different solutions will be needed for different businesses, and we are committed to working through with you to find solutions.

Turning to another item on today's agenda, I'm pleased to see the report on Red Routes taken together with recommendations to expand these to Western Road and Queens Road, roads that we need we know are in need of change. Red Routes in London Road and Lewes Road have helped improve safety and reduce congestion and contributed to a huge reduction of 85% in journeys to bus passengers in these areas. They’re also a great example of consultation and community engagement at every stage of this process, the Council has listened, spoken to residents, spoken with traders and adapted the scheme so that they can work as well as possible for everybody.

In addition, there is more good news on bus concessions which I know Councillor Muten will expand on, but I wanted to particularly highlight one aspect. There are around 42,000 people in Brighton and Hove who are eligible for an older person's or disabled persons bus pass. The number of journeys made with a concessionary bus pass increased by almost 10% in the last year, which is really fantastic news. The Council reimburses bus operators for their travel, and the Brighton and Hove scheme is more generous than the national scheme in the hours that concessionary buses, sorry, concessionary passes can be used. Older people can use their passes between 9:00 AM and 4:00 AM

Sunday to Friday and all day at the weekends, while disabled people can use their passes 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

I'd also like to say how proud I am to see the updates on the Brighton & Hove Fairness Fund come before this Cabinet today. The continuation of our Fairness Fund will allow us to further support those residents most affected by the cost of living crisis and the terrible legacy of the Conservative government's inadequate funding of local councils. It's proposed focus for 25/26 intends to move the city's welfare support response towards a stronger prevention model, finding longer term solutions for households and reducing the need for future crisis or hardship support. It's an approach I'm confident will make a real difference not only to the lives of those being supported, but also to our community as a whole.

And in more good news, I'm delighted to confirm that Britannia Hotel Group have paid £500,000, the first of their instalments to this Council to compensate us for the cost of work done over the past two years to ensure the safety of the Royal Albion Hotel following the devastating fire there.

Lastly, Ramadan Mubarak. To those observing I was really delighted to attend the Community iftar almost two weeks ago. It was hosted by the Multicultural Group and our Mayor, Councillor Mohammed Asaduzzaman, where we broke bread and reflected on the bonds that bind all of our communities here in Brighton and Hove”.