Agenda item - Issues Raised by Members

To consider the following matters raised by Members:

 

(a)           Written Questions:

To consider any written questions

48.1      A copy of the questions received was circulated ahead of the meeting. Responses provided both at the meeting and in writing are as follows:

 

1.             Councillor Meadows- Get Sussex Working Plan 

 

Given unemployment has risen considerably since central Government has come in, how will this plan mitigate the effects of higher inflation and significantly higher National Insurance contributions from employers?  The NI increase, resulting in employers laying off staff or not recruiting at all, coupled with higher inflation, are the two key factors in Sussex not working. 

 

Response: Cllr Daniel

 

The UK employment rate has remained largely stable but it is right to say that the rate of unemployment has risen slightly in Summer 2025.At the same time the value of wages of those who are employed  have slightly increased.  It is difficult to use the ONS statistics with great certainty as they themselves warn given weighting used during pandemic times and some volatility in the data over the last 12 months.  

Given the challenges with that data its hard to argue there is hard evidence that NI has had an impact on these figures although the OBR forecast a small impact of 0.1% on productivity.  

What needs to be balanced against this policy is the impact on the economy of over a decade of public service cuts causing huge waiting lists on the NHS and people unable to work because they are waiting for treatment, a lack of support services to individuals and business. These are areas that the Labour government is proudly investing in and making an enormous difference on:  

·            Employment support for people who need help to access training and work which is the policy before us today 

·            Millions of additional hospital appointments and action to reduce waiting lists as well as a real plan to truly update access to NHS.  

·            An increase in free childcare for working parents from last month worth up to £7500 to those households each year meaning their standard of living is going up in real terms.  

 

It has also set out a growth strategy to support job creation and whilst there is a volatile international context to deliver that within we are forecast to have the second fastest growing economy in the G7. Which demonstrates an end to the chaotic decline and neglect of the Tory Government and a true move to a more secure economy with secure jobs.   

 

2.             Councillor McNair- E-scooter Trial proposal for Brighton & Hove 

 

Will this scheme encourage the uptake of illegal scooters? 

 

Response: Cllr Muten

 

Thank you, Cllr McNair, for your question. 

Private e-scooters are illegal, and e-scooters will remain illegal on the public highway during new trials, so a trial of hire scooters presents a legal option for visitors and residents which is accountable and regulated, run by an experienced operator. It would reduce demand for private e-scooters by providing a safer alternative which would be legal on the local public highway. Within this trial, anyone who wants to try an e-scooter can do so legally, and we take the view that most people do not wish to engage with criminal behaviour as part of their travel choices. This is expected to marginalise, and therefore, discourage the illegal use e-scooters.  

 

3.             Councillor McNair- E-scooter Trial proposal for Brighton & Hove 

 

How will the council stop scooters riding through red lights and riding on pavements? 

 

Response: Cllr Muten

 

Thank you, Cllr McNair, for your question. 

 

The Highway Code is clear. Passing through a red light as a rider or driver is illegal. There have been some updates to the Highway Code recently and anyone who hold a driving licence is advised to ensure they keep up to date. 

Unlike our bike hire offer, you will have to hold a driving licence to hire an e-scooter as part of our proposed trial. Furthermore, each e-scooter will have a number plate.  

Further, all new users will be required to complete online training when signing up. The Council will also offer optional in-person training sessions for a fee.   

Riders must present a provisional or full drivers’ license when they sign up, and those licenses will be checked on an ongoing randomised basis.   

Where there is evidence of breach of traffic rules – such as passing through a red light, we can work with Sussex Police to take appropriate reasonable recourse. 

This more rigorous approach may well encourage other road users, including cyclists and motor vehicle drivers, not to jump red lights.  

 

4.             Councillor Meadows- E-scooter Trial proposal for Brighton & Hove 

 

What makes the council scheme e-scooters safer than illegal e-scooters?  Advising helmets are worn is a totally insufficient suggestion. 

 

Response; Cllr Muten

 

Thank you, Cllr Meadows, for your question. 

 

Merely putting a helmet on would be clearly insufficient. This is why we are working with a responsible provider – Beryl – with whom established a trusted working relationship. Our proposed trial scheme will have significant safety features including a requirement to hold a driving licence – provisional or full; speed restrictions, numberplates, front and back lights, night curfews and lowers speed, geofenced limits to ensure no hired e-scooters in certain locations such the promenade, undercliff, pavements, and other areas, including no use within event spaces, and introduced only in part of the city. 

In terms of helmets, to encourage their use, the operator will offer incentives to riders who provide evidence of wearing helmets.  This is a good thing. 

In addition, a targeted campaign will focus on younger riders, highlighting the role helmets play in preventing some of the most serious types of head injuries.   

Our trial includes several other proposed safety measures, which will be outlined in the upcoming consultation for public feedback.   

Here are a few key elements:   

1.          Pavement riding will be prohibited, and carrying passengers will not be allowed.   

  

2.          The hire zone will include timed ‘no-go’ areas, such as George Street in Hove and Gardner Street in Brighton, as well as 24-hour no-go zones, including Cranbourne Street, the Undercliff, and the cliff-top routes between the Marina and Saltdean. Temporary no-go zones may also be introduced for major events like Pride.  
  

3.          All new users will be required to complete online training when signing up. The Council will also offer optional in-person training sessions for a fee.  
  

4.          Riders must present a provisional or full drivers’ license when they sign up, and those licenses will be checked on an ongoing randomised basis.    

 

A well designed and regulated legal trial scheme is a safer framework for all.  

 

5.             Councillor Meadows- Women’s Football in Sussex 

 

What is this report on Women’s football about as we've been denied access? 

 

Response: Cllr Robins

 

As detailed in the Part 1 report, the promotion of elite sporting events in the city has demonstrated clear benefits for health and active lifestyle outcomes. The Part 2 report includes some commercially sensitive areas that are currently in early stages of development and cannot be shared more broadly at this time. Should these plans progress, additional reports will be shared, providing an opportunity for all parties to contribute to shaping future direction. 

 

6.             Councillor Meadows- Women’s Football in Sussex 

 

Is this £1m expenditure for a new training ground for women's football.  If so, is that expenditure within Brighton and Hove's city limits?  Where is it going to be built? 

 

Response: Cllr Robins

 

The report is not about a training ground for women’s football.  

 

7.             Councillor Meadows- Women’s Football in Sussex 

 

If it is to be built outside the city limits, why is the council paying for it? 

 

Response: Cllr Robins

 

The report is not about a training ground for women’s football.  

 

8.             Councillor Sykes – TBM Month 5 

 

What is the current CT collection success rate in-year and how has this changed over the past 2 years? 

 

Response: Cllr Taylor

 

At September, the collection rate over the past couple of years was in 20/23. It was 51.67% in 2024, it was 50.88%. In 2025 it was 50.92%. So it's slightly better than last year and slightly worse than two years ago.

It's worth worth knowing how that overall we measure our collection rate based on ultimate collection rate, which can obviously be a number of years on from the point on which it would be owed. And our target is 98.75%, but usually it takes between three and five years to get to that target rate. 

 

9.             Councillor Sykes – TBM Month 5 

 

To the background of the difficult financial circumstances of the council in which we are permanently under spending and recruitment freezes, the Administration continues to commit to substantial additional revenue spend commitments that are essentially discretionary, such as early Local Government Reorganisation, a less economic /more expensive option for the new King Alfred Centre, and new senior staff roles to support the political Cabinet. Is this a sustainable approach?    

 

Response: Cllr Taylor

 

Thank you for the question. Again, I think to say on that one, it's obviously a balance- everybody knows in this room that the Council is in a very difficult financial position. That's what we've got in TBM 5 on the report later. That's why we're looking at some asset disposals in a separate report. That's why we're looking at investing in housing to tackle homeless crisis.

What we then have to say as a Council is, does that mean that we sort of hunker our heads down and try not to do anything sort of positive or aspirational for the city? I don't think that's a good approach. I think we do have to keep investing. One of the reasons the city is in a tricky point is we probably didn't do very well in that 2010's austerity period with our assets. The King Alfred is an interesting one that, as you point out on behalf of Councillor Sykes. Indeed we have ended up picking up a more expensive option, although actually we think the economic case in terms of returns is better. So, the financial modelling suggests we'll make more income from building a slightly better facility. So look, it's a balance and ultimately the public will end up judging us on whether we've got the balance right between investing in future assets, trying to take the city forward and also managing our revenue budgets. Local Government Reorganisation is obviously a national process that all areas will have to go through and so, as you said, we've gone for devolution as quickly as possible because we think that the devolution parts of it, having a mayor for Sussex and the funding that comes from that will actually help our local area in terms of its vibrancy and economy, but ultimately also receipts into the Council. 

  

10. Councillor Sykes- TBM Month 5 

 

What are the administration's plans for closed school buildings that are costing us an extra £200k of revenue funding this year to maintain? 

 

Response: Cllr Taylor

 

We are working hard to re-purpose or sell surplus properties to ensure that these generate either revenue savings for the Council or capital receipts. 

  

11.          Councillor Sykes- TBM Month 5 

 

What is a 'functional alignment saving' (p409) and does the underachievement of this saving by nearly £1 million this year have any lessons or implications for savings expected under Local Government Reorganisation? 

 

Response: Cllr Taylor

 

The functional alignment savings were targeted as part of a previous budget setting process. This was about looking at areas of spend across the council such as administrative roles. These are now being wrapped up into updated savings proposals that will come to Cabinet in December, rather than being a separate line. The LGR process is not expected to generate significant savings for Brighton and Hove City Council as the Council already operates on a unitary footprint. 

 

12.          Councillor West - E-scooter Trial proposal for Brighton & Hove 

 

Research shows many issues of concern have been identified in e-scooter trials. E-scooter trial problems include injuries to users and pedestrians, especially vulnerable groups like the visually impaired, due to dangerous riding, poor infrastructure, and a lack of awareness about the speed and quietness of e-scooters. Pavement obstruction from parked rental scooters, illegal use of private scooters, and a lack of clear legislation have also been reported, causing safety concerns and social exclusion. A government evaluation of scooter trials also showed a high modal shift of over 50% from walking and cycling, leading to concern over the impact upon fitness and health. Given the considerable weight of concerning evidence of negative impacts of e-scooter trials, how does the administration assure that these issues won’t occur here too? 

 

Response: Cllr Muten

 

Thank you, Cllr West, for your question. 

You raise several important points which are central to our thinking the in the design of our scheme and choice of a responsible partner – Beryl – with whom we have developed a trusted working relationship with and has demonstrated a high standard in their trials elsewhere. 

We’ve gained valuable insights from the breadth of UK e-scooter trials to date, and the latest evidence reflecting adjustments to some initial practices is broadly positive.  

We have no intention to race to the bottom with this. Far from it, putting the infrastructure in to protect and make it safer is central to our design and thinking. 

Obstruction has been a recurring issue in trials that used a free-floating parking model. To address this, we propose installing dedicated racks at existing hubs on footways and corrals on the carriageway to reduce street clutter and minimise obstructions. Riders who leave scooters outside designated parking areas will be subject to fines.  

Design will be consistent with our Accessibility Strategy and associated policies – including for instance pavement width at mobility hubs. To ensure accessibility, we will invite a local disability organisations and advocates to independently audit any pavement sites where new racks could reduce the usable width to below two metres. We are committed to avoiding barriers to walking and wheeling and will seek to amend or look alternative locations where concerns are identified.  

The Operator anticipates that cycling may also benefit from this trial. Evidence from the Beryl scheme in Norwich suggests that e-bike hires increased following the introduction of e-scooters. The indication is that e-scooters attract new users who may not initially be interested in cycling, but who once introduced to shared mobility and may go on to explore other options available through their Beryl membership. 

The paper coming today sets out the proposed e-scooter trial also draws on findings from the 2024 COMO UK Shared Micromobility Report. COMO UK is the national accreditation body for shared mobility.  

According to their report, around 26% of e-scooter journeys in UK cities typically replace trips that would have been made on foot. However, this shift is offset by the greater carbon savings achieved when scooters replace car journeys. In many areas, these savings have compensated for the reduction in walking trips.  

The report also highlights key health benefits associated with shared micro-mobility.  

I’ll outline our approach to supporting police enforcement of illegal scooter use in response to the next question.  

 

13.          Councillor West- TBM Month 5 

 

With 26% of the current year's substantial package of budget savings at risk of not being delivered (para 3.2), how confident are Cabinet that the measures they are taking will resolve this, and how credible does Cabinet believe the Council’s ability is to deliver up the humongous savings targets projected for the next three years? 

 

Response: Cllr Taylor

 

Financial recovery plans are being worked up to ensure the Council can achieve financial balance for 2025/26. Good progress has been made in reducing the projected overspend so far, but there is still a long way to go. The Council’s future budget gap is driven by huge increases in demand for statutory services, particularly adults and children’s social care and temporary accommodation. I agree that this will be a very challenging gap to close. 

  

14.          Councillor West- TBM Month 5 

 

Para 3.6 lists other options being explored, including the alarming suggestion of stopping “non-essential services” and using up risk provision. What seems to be missing throughout this is the most obvious question of asking the Government to stop austerity and to instead fund a restoration of local authority services that are vital to the well-being of our communities and economy. Why is that action seemingly not included in the Cabinet report? 

 

Response: Cllr Taylor

 

I know you know stopping non-essential services is obviously something you will understand as that would include shutting toilets like you guys did and obviously we reopened them. That’s the sort of thing that we've been avoiding and want to avoid in our Administration.

In terms of austerity and I've spent time explaining it in quite a lot of depth to you at Audit & Standards Committee but perhaps that wasn’t received so I'll have another go.

Last year's settlement from government as an overall financial package for the general fund, taking into account our tax base and our funding from government went up £16 million. That was a six or seven percent increase. So that was a real terms increase in funding. I think that's higher than the national level of inflation last year. This year, we've yet to see the final outcome of the fair funding review. But in our medium term financial plan, again it's going up by fifteen, sixteen percent. So as I've tried to explain, that is not austerity, our funding is going up in real terms. I think you need to understand what austerity means.

The Increases that we're getting causing the issue is set out in the paper on the agenda and I would hope most councillors would understand is our demand pressures, our demand pressures from homelessness, adult social care and children's services. So, it's not a matter of our funding being cut, it's a matter of the complexity and demand on our care budget services going up very, very significantly and as a Council we have to find ways to mitigate and manage that. Now underlying your question is well, why aren't you lobbying the government? We're lobbing the government all the time. I think we're constantly lobbing the government to think about how fair funding will work properly. And indeed, I think at your last committee that you chaired, I got out some of the examples of where we're lobbying them. We think they should be calculating their homelessness grant differently and basing it on homelessness numbers, not Universal Credit claimants. There's a whole wide range of things that we're feeding into to ensure we get the fair funding that we need as a Council, but even when we get that fair funding, we will still have to look at those care budgets and that is what the challenge that the authority faces and what we're working through. I haven't really heard many questions from the Greens about how we tackle those challenges. I don't think they're really engaging in it to be honest, but that is the formal answer. We're not getting austerity. We have complex demand budgets that we need to work through to make sure the authority is sustainable. 

 

15.          Councillor McLeay- Housing Supply & Asset Management 

 

What safeguards are in place to ensure disposals do not undermine long-term community or service needs? 

 

Response: Cllr Taylor

 

The Asset Management Plan sets out the objectives and actions for the ongoing strategic management of the council’s land and buildings.  It supports the outcomes of the Council Plan, helps achieve the priority objectives and delivery of the council’s Medium Term Financial Strategy whilst ensuring the effective management of risk within the portfolios. The objectives of the Asset Management Plan include ensuring assets meet service need, which includes the needs of the community.  Any proposal for disposal will be aligned to the objectives of the Asset Management Plan to ensure a balanced and holistic approach to decision making.   

 

16.          Councillor McLeay- Housing Supply & Asset Management 

 

How will the 25% reduction in maintenance costs be achieved without compromising safety or service delivery? 

 

Response: Cllr Taylor

 

As set out in the Asset Management Plan it will be achieved by rationalising our operational property estate. This is not about slashing maintenance or Health & Safety budgets. The council owns a large amount of property that it holds for operational purposes at significant cost.  The proposal for a 25% reduction in operational property costs is a target for us to aim towards perhaps aspirational, but onethat succinctly articulates the absolute need for us to reduce these operational property costs to support our medium-term budget planning and protect the delivery of services.   

By reducing our operational estate we can better ensure the safety and compliance of properties retained with the resources we have available. A future review of the operational estate will focus on achieving delivery of service from a reduced portfolio.   

 

17.          Councillor Hill– E-scooter Trial proposal for Brighton & Hove 

 

Will steps be taken in conjunction with this trial to curb illegal e-scooter usage which is already prevalent in the city? 

 

Response: Cllr Taylor

 

Thank you, Cllr Hill, for your question. 

 

You are absolutely right to highlight illegal use of private e-scooters as a ongoing concern. E-scooters are illegal. Private e-scooter will remain illegal during any trial. Nobody should be driven to criminality to try out a micro-mobility option proven to curb car use. 

I’d like to outline the additional steps the Council is taking to support Sussex Police in their planned enforcement activity beyond those already mentioned.  

In 2024, there were 33 reported e-scooter collisions across Sussex—all involving private scooters used illegally on the public highway. This represented approximately 3% of the national total. That same year, in other UK towns and cities running official trials, private scooters accounted for around three-quarters of all recorded scooter collisions.  

Working in partnership with the Council, Sussex Police have already carried out several enforcement operations in the city this year, including vehicle seizures and issuing fines. The Council’s Transport and Trading Standards teams are currently working in partnership with East Sussex Fire & Rescue to further support police efforts in tackling illegal e-scooter use. In these partnerships, we are clamping down on illegal e-scooter use and will continue to do so, including should we proceed with a legal e-scooter trial. 

With our partners, we are planning an advertising campaign for November, focusing on four key messages. These will be promoted via social media and at a central city event timed to coincide with increased police enforcement activity. As in previous years, our Christmas messaging will aim to discourage the gifting of private e-scooters and will follow a similar format to past campaigns.