Budget setting in progress

The sunset last Friday, on what was a sad week for me, was completely brilliant.

Friday night's sunset

It marked the end of the first week for my father without his wife of many decades and the end of our first week of him living with us. The dog is already enjoying the extra attention he gives her and he is relishing some blue skies. 

Saturday's sky

This working week I have been concentrating on another key part of my role facilitating the democratic process and in particular the setting of a legal budget. In truth, the development of the way forward for our corporate plan and a budget which meets the constrained resources at our disposal has been underway for many months.  

Indeed, in this blog I have made reference and added links to our budget consultation exercise ‘Stop, Start, Change’ and our animation spelling out where the money comes from and what it is spent on. But the process of 54 councillors meeting their obligations to set a legal budget culminates in Budget Council and this took place last night, Thursday 26 February.  

Budget Council at Hove Town Hall

The Council

At Budget Council 

This year we were faced with a very complex set of options for members, namely three alternative budgets to be discussed with 14 amendments tabled in advance. A lengthy and open debate on the amendments and the substantive proposals took place between 4.30pm and 11pm.  

However, despite a number of adjournments and constructive discussions between Group Leaders, there was no basis for a majority agreement by that time of the night and the meeting was adjourned until Tuesday 3 March at 4pm. I very much hope that the constructive discussions that began last night will end up in forming a new alternative budget resolution which can find majority favour and enable us to set a legal budget within the required time scale.  

In practice the decision needs to be taken and the relevant papers prepared for the printers by Thursday 5 March. The law requires the decision to have been made by Tuesday 10 March. The strongly held and differing opinions in the chamber reflect very well the strongly held and differing views of our residents when they are consulted and so coming to agreement is necessarily difficult and will require some compromise. The whole process underlines the demanding responsibilities on our elected members to be both representatives and leaders of their communities and citizens. Our role, as officers, is to support them to fulfil these obligations and it is important that I end by recognising the fantastic hard work of colleagues in the unsung areas of finance, legal services, democratic services and communications, not forgetting my own talented and committed Executive Leadership Team.  

At a recent ELT meeting

Throughout our work we seek to behave in line with our organisational values and to fulfil the obligations of our work objectives enabling the council to play its part in making this city a fantastic place to live, work and visit. 

Best wishes
Penny