The council’s biggest annual financial decision will be made next week.
Councillors will meet at Hove Town Hall to decide the council budget for the financial year starting on 1 April.
The council provides more than 700 services residents of the city see or use every day, paid for by the annual council budget. It takes just over £2million to run our services every day for the city’s population of almost 300,000 people and the costs are rising.
The focus for the Budget Council is on the year ahead, rather than later years of the four year medium term financial strategy. The longer term planning will follow after a government spending review which we expect to cover 2021 to 2024.
The budget proposals have been developed to support Council’s Corporate Plan 2020 to 2023. The plan brings together the agreed commitments and priorities for the council. This year’s budget sets out how the promises in the plan will be funded for 2020/21.
Councillor Dan Yates, lead councillor for finance, said: “Our top priorities are improving housing and reducing homelessness; tackling climate change and making our city carbon neutral by 2030; and growing the local economy through community wealth building.
"Here in Brighton & Hove we are a city that cares. We’ve put residents first and built our budget around a deliverable council plan for Brighton & Hove.
“We’re still facing huge challenges from the years of cuts to funding from government. We continue to protect local services and look after those who need help in our city.”
The 2020/21 budget includes almost £13m of new investments to support priority services in the corporate plan. Key services are proposed to receive:
• Behind the budget – questions we’re often asked
• Find out how the budget is currently spent on different services
Budget proposals include a proposed increase of council tax of 3.99%. This is a council tax increase of 1.99% plus an adult social care precept (funding only to be used for adult social care) of 2%.
This would mean the average Band D Council Tax contribution to the council would rise by £63.66 to £1,659.11 in 2020/21.
The full amount for the average Band D Council tax for 2020/21 will be £1,954.55 (a rise of £75.52 from the year before). This includes £199.91 for the Sussex Police & Crime Commissioner and £95.53 for the East Sussex Fire Authority.
The full budget proposals can be read on our website
The budget will be debated by all councillors on Thursday 27 February at Hove Town Hall. At the meeting, opposition councillors present and debate any amendments to the proposals they choose to submit.
Find out more information about our budget, including a timeline for the budget setting process, at www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/budget