Agenda item - Public Involvement

To consider the following matters raised by members of the public:

(a)           Petitions: To receive any petitions presented by members of the public notified by the due date of 24 February 2022;

(b)           Written Questions: To receive any questions submitted by the due date of 12 noon on the 4 March 2022.

(c)           Deputations: To receive any deputations submitted by the due date of 12 noon on the 4 March 2022.

(b)  Public Questions

74.1 The Chair agreed that a written response would be sent to Daniel Harris for his question regarding Domestic Abuse Spending Priorities.

74.2 The Chair invited Naomi Bos to present the following question:

I note that the funding for domestic abuse from central Government is going to remain the same over the next two years.  Inflation will therefore have a big impact on the services the Council can afford.  With this in mind, working in partnership with service providers will be vital.

Will the Council commit to prioritising bids from providers with a proven track record of  adding value by raising money with grants and fundraising specifically for services in Brighton & Hove?

The Chair gave the following response:

The City Council has received notification from the Dept of Levelling Up Housing and Communities for the funding award of new burdens funding for 2022/23. We haven’t as yet received notification of any potential funding beyond that.

Any award of funding to external providers must be in line with Council contract standing orders and follow procurement rules to ensure that there is transparency and equity regarding awards of public money.

Therefore we can’t ‘commit’ to any process that falls outside of that process.  But we do have a social value framework of course. Anyone bidding still has to evidence how they meet requirements. As you know we have the working group which is looking at the procurement process, and which we hope the work of the working group will seek to strengthen.

Naomi Bos gave the following supplementary question:

Its been about 12 months since we presented the largest petition ever to Brighton and Hove City Council after the Domestic Abuse Service RISE was defunded, and just wanted to say that from us as an activist group, its been really heartening to see Councillors working across parties to find a solution to something that obviously was not working, and to try and fix the holes in procurement process that have seen a fracturing of services, so just wanted to say its been really positive to experience this especially knowing how easy it is to ignore pressure groups.

The Chair responded with thanks and mentioned that she had raised this issue in her budget Council speech.