Decision - Review of the Council's Corporate Debt Policy

Brighton and Hove Cabinet Decided 20 Mar 2025 approved GET /api/coverage

Decision maker

Cabinet

Report author

Graham Bourne

Published

21 Mar 2025

Reference

7417

As published

the council's own words, unedited

This report requests Cabinet to receive and approve the annual review of the council's Corporate Debt Policy incorporating updated ethical standards and practice.

1) That Cabinet approves the revised Corporate Debt Policy as Appendix 4 and agrees that it is put into practice with effect from 1 April 2025 to replace the policy last updated in 2021.

Parsed from the document

gpt-5.6-luna-2026-07-09 · 17929/1898 tokens · 11372ms · parsed 9 Sep 2026 15:37

Everything below was read out of a PDF by a model It is useful and it is not authoritative. The document it came from is linked in the rail, and where the two disagree the document is right.

The Equality Impact and Outcome Assessment examines how the Corporate Debt Policy could affect households and businesses, particularly people with protected characteristics and other vulnerable groups. It recommends ethical and proportionate debt collection, supported by welfare, advice, accessibility and safeguarding measures to prevent hardship.

Recommendation

Continue applying the best-practice principles in the Corporate Debt Policy across the council; ensure the Corporate Debt Board implements a holistic welfare-framework support strategy; continue the identified mitigations and review the further actions in the next EIA.

Financial impact

none stated

Ward affected

city-wide

Stakeholders named

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Households and businesses with council debtsPeople with protected characteristicsDisabled people and people with mental health conditionsOlder people and young peopleSingle-parent and low-income householdsCarersPeople affected by domestic violenceGypsies and TravellersLGBTQ peopleVoluntary sector debt advice organisationsCouncil debt hubs and frontline staff

Next steps

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Apply the Corporate Debt Policy fully across the council on a continuous basis.
Ensure the Corporate Debt Board implements a welfare-framework strategy providing holistic support to people in financial hardship.
Continue the listed equality mitigations, including advice, advocacy, interpretation, accessibility, training and safeguarding measures.
Review progress on the further actions in the next Equality Impact and Outcome Assessment.
Revisit the EIA if the Household Support Fund is withdrawn or its funding model changes substantially.

Precedents

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