WBC Leader’s Budget Speech – Feb 23

It is my privilege to present this budget as we head toward the end of the first year of a Labour Council in Worthing. 

This work is very much a team effort, and I would like to thank our amazing Labour Group for putting so much talent, time and sheer hard graft into running the Council this year. Taking on a Council that has not had change for a good long while was never going to be easy, and I am full of admiration for the tenacity and application that all our Councillors have shown in learning the ropes. With particular thanks to our Cabinet team who have often managed on little sleep and a lot of tea to make sure that we are fulfilling our democratic mandate to lead.

Of course, delivering our Council for the Community priorities can only be practically realized by an operational engine room of excellent Council Officers. Again, I know that our officers have worked to capacity and beyond and we are extremely grateful for all their efforts. 

I will cover 3 key areas:

Firstly, I will present the core tenets that have underpinned how our money has been spent this year. These areas reflect the manifesto that we were elected on and became the Council’s strategic priorities in July last year.

I will then go on to discuss how budget planning for 2023-24 has been undertaken in a fiscally responsible manner, ensuring that we cut our cloth wisely in response to the legacy of issues that we have inherited from the previous administration and the continuing underfunding of Local Government from our current National Tory Government.

Finally, I will outline how, in the year and years to come, we will continue to work towards our vision of being the fairest, greenest Coastal town in the UK.

Putting Our Communities First in 2022/3

Shortly after taking office, we declared a Cost of Living Emergency. We focused resources on assisting residents to be able to afford their bills and to put food on the table. Our links through Community Works with food banks and housing charities enabled us to support Community organisations on the front line. We cannot thank volunteers enough for their continuing efforts to make sure that no one goes hungry or is left homeless in our town. Similarly, our officers have worked tirelessly in the face of increasingly stretched resources to find housing for our residents who have been priced out of the market and to ensure that people are accessing all the benefits they are entitled to. Our principle of fairness has led us to scrapping the £5 minimum Council Tax charge for working age residents and introducing an Ethical Debt policy. 

We have also continued our pledge to actively engage with and listen to our Communities. The Summer Big Listen was the start of a different way of doing business for this Council. Armed with red deckchairs and notebooks, officers and Members spent time with our residents hearing their ideas for our town. They told us what they love – our seafront, green spaces and sense of community – and what they would like to see in the future – safe community spaces, housing that their children and grandchildren can afford and investment in iconic Worthing landmarks such as the Lido. This ongoing conversation will be an integral part of how our Council works and Worthing develops in the coming years.

Unsurprisingly, our Coastline frequently comes up as a priority. The Foreshore team this year have done an exemplary job keeping our beaches safe and clean, and we have increased the number of requested designated bathing areas, with the aim that East Beach and then Goring join this essential list. Nonetheless, we remain appalled at Southern Water’s record on pollution from raw sewage and will continue to hold them to account. The Sussex Bay work is also an essential part of protecting our natural resources and we continue to invest in this along with our partners along the coast.

As well as taking care of our blue nature reserve, we are also the stewards of numerous green spaces across our Borough. From installing new play equipment to Cllr Wells’ Poo Patrols, we are committed to making these safe, attractive spaces for people and nature alike. Similarly, we have started laying the foundations to turn our grey urban spaces green. A variety of Community groups and local schools have had their say on how the currently barren Montague Place can become the vibrant heart of our town centre. This space is on a par with the Lido in terms of Community pride and it will be our absolute privilege to see the ideas of local people made manifest here.

Cutting Our Cloth – Making our budget work hard for the public purse

Our work this year has been set against a backdrop of severe financial constraints. Our inherited budget position was one where no attempts had been made to fix the roof whilst the sun was shining. Without any Council housing stock and with a relationship with the local housing association that often placed limitations on who we could house from our register, officers have been forced to place increasing numbers of people in expensive and inadequate Bed and Breakfast accommodation. This is not good for people’s health and wellbeing, often leaving them without cooking facilities and isolated from family, work and school networks. Furthermore, it is also not a good use of public money – the housing budget for Worthing Council from April to December this year is £2.8 million and is likely to sit at close to £4 million by year end. 

Given spiralling inflation and energy costs, and continuing underfunding from the crumbling, clueless National Tory Government our budget position half way through the year became very serious indeed. Months of valuable officer time were lost as they worked overtime to find savings in our services and to squeeze efficiencies out of an organisation that was already wrung dry. At the end of this process, the black hole for 2022-23 that will need to be met from our under-funded reserves is likely to be £2.1 million. We have narrowly avoided being a bankrupt Council this year, caused by a useless National Conservative Government and a legacy of complacency and lack of strategic thinking from the previous local Conservative administration. We are clearing up this mess and look for better National leadership before too much longer.

Our Capital programme for 2023-24 reflects the fact that we are literally fixing the floorboards that have been left to rot for far too long. Scandalously, here we are in 2023, still without a sprinkler system to protect our iconic and much-loved timber pier. Our Communities want to know that we care about our Coastal heritage and take our health and safety responsibilities seriously. So this Labour Council will prioritise it.

Similarly, our Council employees are the most valuable resource this Council has. They are the engine room that allows our vision for the town to develop and come to fruition. And yet, when we took office, we were amazed to find that instead of making sure that Commerce Way was a Council building fit for purpose, public money had instead been lavished on carpeting the Town Hall. Commerce Way needs female changing facilities and spaces that inspire our employees and let them know how much we value them. So this Labour Council will prioritise that too.

This has also raised a wider strategic question as to whether it is actually in the best interests of the public purse for the Council to hold on to aging assets that will cost us increasing amounts in repairs in future years. We will therefore undertake a strategic asset review in the coming year to ensure that Council resources are being used to improve the lives of our Communities and not simply to shore up redundant and aging white elephants.

Our 2023-24 budget is balanced thanks to the ongoing hard work of our Officers. We have prioritised front line services that keep our communities safe and clean and allow residents to thrive. We will continue to improve waste collection and increase recycling rates. Our parks, greenspaces and foreshore will be invested in and we will work with local businesses to make sure the town centre is attractive, clean and thriving. We will give the Worthing public a clear picture of how their money is being spent and how far we are achieving against our strategic priorities, as clearly set out in our Worthing Public Cabinet Meeting last July.

Cllr Turley will walk us through the various income streams that the Council is dependent on this year in order to remain a going concern and other members of the Cabinet team will give details as to what these income streams will look like in their portfolios. Our proposed Council Tax level of 2.99% allows us to approach our medium term financial strategy with an assured level of income to protect our front line Community services. Similarly, the review of fees and charges (many of which had not been looked at since 2015) allows us to consider what revenue is necessary set against what works best for our residents.

Our balanced budget remains extremely tight and officer time will once again be spent trying to secure the external funding needed to realise the potential of our town. We were disappointed but not surprised to be unsuccessful in the Hunger Games Levelling Up competition. The amount of officer time that went into this bid raises serious questions as to what is the best use of our scant local government resource. The third round of Levelling Up will start soon, but to be quite honest, our officers may well find that other external funding partners are worth more of their time and effort.

We are in conversation with West Sussex County to finalise our refreshed partnership Growth Deal. We know that they are also struggling with their bottom line thanks to the spiralling costs of a social care system that is no longer fit for purpose. So we will meet them halfway and look to see how working together can benefit our Communities and make us greater than the sum of our parts. We hope to partner with them on key development priorities, notably realizing a sustainable travel network across our Borough – together, we can help Worthing to get out of its car and onto a safe walkway, cycle lane and affordable bus or train.

Active travel is one way that we can work towards our vision of being fair and green, particularly in the areas of Community Wellbeing and the Climate Emergency. Decarbonising our town, alongside urban greening, can only be realized when all our investment and resources have this inbuilt into their DNA. The external funding of £2.8 million recently secured to insulate our civic buildings is a start, but we will need sustained and sufficient funding to fully decarbonize Worthing by 2045, if not before.

Building our Future – A Council for the Community

Fair, green and local anchor our Council work and future development firmly in the heart of the Community. Our Council for the Community paper, brought forward at the January Worthing Public Cabinet, sets out how we will move our Community participation model forward into a place where residents can make their own decisions about how best to spend public money in their local neighbourhood. This will be made visible in our first step redesign of how Community Infrastructure Levy funding is distributed. The funding will be accessible to Community groups, with transparency and clear Governance allowing every penny to be tracked by local residents.

Similarly, in 2023/24 our resource allocation will follow our Economic Principles that were shared at Worthing Public Cabinet in December. Our strategic investment portfolio is focused on local investment that will not only generate financial return, but social capital too. A good example of this is our approach to housing across the Borough. Cllr Taylor is working with officers to identify investments that would be appropriate for Emergency and Temporary Accommodation (and thus help to address the runaway B&B costs). This alongside proactive work focused on keeping people in their homes and of course the investment in our Council brown field sites that will allow us to once again provide Council housing.

In my opposition budget speech last year, I stated that great architecture, green spaces and practical solutions can work seamlessly together. The Regeneration, Housing and Climate Emergency Portfolios have put in place the foundations for this to be realised in Teville Gate and Union Place. As a fiscally responsible and pragmatic Council, I will not over promise here. However, these sites have a story that is long past its sell by date. As with Montague Place, our local high streets and green spaces, they are bursting with potential and it is high time that this was unlocked to contribute to our green, fair local town. 

A place where residents are in conversation with the Council; a place where fairness is a principle that our Communities embrace and see it writ large in the support networks across their neighbourhoods; a place where resources are tight but well-managed for the benefit of all; a place where businesses, residents and visitors benefit from safe, well cared for public spaces. 

In these revived public spaces, our culture and leisure offer can realise its full potential. Our inaugural Worthing Festival in June this year will reflect the very best of our town by setting the stage for all our Communities to come together and celebrate our diversity and our unity.

We are a Council for the Community and we serve Worthing with the resources that we have. Our thanks to everyone who has worked to support their families, friends, colleagues, neighbours and strangers this year – public money is there to support these networks and to allow people to thrive. We have faced extreme challenges as a Council and as a Community this year and we will continue to move forwards together.