Council invites residents to choose how they’d save £30 million

Residents are being invited to share their views on how the council can make savings of £30 million as it looks to balance its budget for next year.

To show residents the significant challenge and impact of making decisions on reducing funding for services, we've launched a special online ‘budget simulator’ allowing people to decide how and where they’d make funding cuts if they were in power.

We're currently forecasting a budget shortfall of £37 million in 2025/26.

We believe we could receive additional funding from central government to cover some of the shortfall, but we still expect to have to find up to £30 million of savings to meet the budget shortfall completely.

Working on where savings can be made

Our senior officers are already working hard to pinpoint where they can make changes to services to save money.

And they're pointing out the i360’s failure will be an additional cost to the council of £1m per year until the government loan is repaid and not the reason for the £30m budget shortfall next year.

The shortfall is caused by increased cost and demand across a wide range of services including SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) provision, home-to-school transport, adult and children’s social care, and homelessness.

What services would you protect, reduce or stop?

By using the simulator, residents can send their own budgets to us with suggestions on which services they’d take money from, which services they’d protect or which they’d stop altogether.

With £30 million needing to be saved, some very difficult decisions are unavoidable in order to ensure we have a balanced budget, which is a legal requirement.

The simulator is very easy to use and is divided into service areas including adult social care, children’s services, housing, leisure and culture, and community services.

Residents will be able to see the expected consequences of either cutting or increasing funding in each service and create their own balanced budgets.

'Extremely difficult task'

Councillor Jacob Taylor, deputy council leader and Cabinet member for Finance, said: “Balancing the council’s budget is an extremely difficult task.

“The new government has provided a significant uplift in local government funding, but the cumulative underfunding of local government over the past 10 years is taking its toll.

“We’re launching our budget simulator so that residents can see for themselves how difficult this process is, but also to give people the opportunity to tell us which services matter most to them, which services they would protect and where they would choose to reduce funding.

Reduce spending but continue providing services

“The target is to reduce our spending by £30 million to balance the books, while ensuring we’re still providing the services they would expect to serve the city and support our residents and businesses.”

Councillor Taylor added: “As a council that listens to its residents, we would like as many people as possible, from as many communities as possible, to take part in this budget exercise and share their views.

“The feedback we receive from residents will be extremely valuable in helping us decide the way forward.”

Join one of our special budget events

We're also holding 2 special budget engagement events where people can join us, use the simulator and hear more about the council's financial situation.

We believe both events will help residents develop an understanding of the difficulties we face in deciding how to save millions of pounds from our budget.

Councillor Taylor and the council’s chief finance officer will be on hand to discuss the budget and give attendees the opportunity to use the simulator.

The first event takes place on Thursday 12 December at Hove Town Hall between 6pm and 8pm. The first 60 people who sign up on our Your Voice platform can attend. Sign up to the event, but please note spaces are limited.

The second event is on Thursday 16 January 2025 at Jubilee Library between 4.30pm and 6.30pm. This event is for anyone who needs a quieter, supported environment to use the simulator and discuss our budget.

With only 20 spaces, you can sign up to the event, email equalities@brighton-hove.gov.uk or text 07825 113 908 with you name, contact email and/or phone number.