Council plan 2023 to 2027 refresh 2025 introduction

Delivering the council’s vision

When I joined Brighton & Hove City Council as Chief Executive in 2024, I was excited to lead a forward thinking, values driven organisation. A year and a half on, my excitement is undiminished. With a majority Council for the first time in 20 years and committed, hard-working staff, I believe the council is well placed to continue delivering for the city and to meet the challenges that lie ahead.

The council plan provides us with a strategic framework to guide our decision making. It sets out our overall vision and our priorities for the future. Two years on from our Council Plan being implemented, we have decided to review and refresh it. We have made significant progress in many areas but there is still much work to be done.

We have a lot to be proud of – outstanding children’s services; our regeneration efforts are making a visible impact, especially on the seafront. We are proud to be a City of Sanctuary with a clear ambition to be inclusive, fair and welcoming to all communities. Alongside our partners in East Sussex and West Sussex, we have successfully applied to be on the Devolution Priority Programme, making us one of the first areas in England to receive devolved powers under the government’s new framework, bringing significant opportunity.

We have aligned the council’s structure to our priorities, set out our vision to be a Learning Council and introduced our five pillars of working: connected, confident, innovative & creative, diverse & inclusive, healthy and psychologically safe. We have a new, streamlined system of decision making in the Cabinet system, and a focus on culture change and service improvement. All of this was reflected in the Corporate Peer Challenge we undertook in April 2025.

We know that there is still much work to do and some significant challenges facing our city and council. Continued pressure on public finances and rising demand for services mean that public services are increasingly stretched. Brighton & Hove has a shortage of good quality, affordable housing, unacceptable levels of homelessness, and a worrying increase in social inequality. The cost-of-living crisis continues to impact the lives of residents.

In this refreshed document we reflect on our performance data, feedback from residents, staff and others, and set out the areas that we will focus on going forward. It is developed alongside our Medium-Term Financial Plan, to ensure that we invest in our priorities while securing our financial sustainability for the longer term, which is critical to ensuring we can continue to deliver vital services that our communities rely on and target investment in areas of improvement and transformation.

We know we can’t do it alone. At the heart of this Council Plan is our residents, our communities, our public sector partners and our businesses. It is only together, by listening to and working in genuine partnership that we can achieve our ambitions.

Like other local authorities, our finances are impacted by more than a decade of structural underfunding and rising demand for services. To remain financially sustainable, we need to increase our efficiency, transforming the way we use data, technology and our assets. We need to invest in prevention and take some tough decisions on what we can and cannot do.

We also need to be creative and innovative, focused on our priorities, and not afraid to embrace change. Opportunities brought by AI, for example, or the devolution of power from central government, give us the scope to work with our partners to tackle the big issues facing the city. Above all, we need to be a learning organisation, one that listens to its staff and customers, that builds on its strengths, but also one that seeks out and addresses its weaknesses.

I am optimistic about the city’s prospects and ambitious about what we can deliver. By remaining focused on our priorities, working with our partners and communities, I believe we can meet the challenges, seize opportunities and deliver the things that really matter to residents. We remain resolute in our commitment to delivering A better Brighton & Hove for All.

Jess Gibbons

Chief Executive, Brighton & Hove City Council