Decision - Auditor’s Annual Report (Value for Money) Year ending 31 March 2025 (2024/25)

Brighton and Hove Decided 27 Jan 2026 for determination GET /api/coverage

Decision maker

—

Report author

Jane Strudwick

Published

28 Jan 2026

Reference

7565

As published

the council's own words, unedited

To note the external auditor's annual report and to receive their opinion on the Council's arrangements for the effective use of its resources (2024/25)

RESOLVED – That the Audit, Standards, and General Purposes Committee note the Auditor's Annual Report (Value For Money) for the financial year ending 31 March 2025.

Parsed from the document

gpt-5.6-luna-2026-07-09 · 20569/2636 tokens · 18031ms · parsed 8 Sep 2026 11:38

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.

Grant Thornton UK LLP reported significant weaknesses in Brighton and Hove City Council’s arrangements for financial sustainability, environmental services governance and housing compliance. The report highlighted a £95.158 million medium-term funding gap, ongoing cultural and service issues in environmental services, and the need to achieve full compliance with the Social Housing Regulator’s standards by December 2026.

Recommendation

The Council was recommended to implement a comprehensive transformation programme with quantified recurrent savings, strengthen reporting on environmental services cultural change, complete housing safety and repairs actions to meet the Social Housing Regulator’s standards by December 2026, and improve HRA planning, internal controls, KPI validation and contract management assurance.

Financial impact

The Council faces a £95.158 million funding gap to 2029/30, including a £39.765 million gap for 2026/27 and a projected £9.406 million overspend for 2025/26. The Council’s outstanding Brighton i360 loan was £51.040 million, with an £18.900 million bad debt provision and a net balance of £32.140 million added to the Medium-Term Financial Plan.

Ward affected

city-wide

Decision maker

Audit, Standards and General Purposes Committee

Stakeholders named

parsed

Brighton and Hove City CouncilCouncil membersresidentsCouncil stafftenant groupssocial housing tenantsschoolsbusinessesservice usersCabinetAudit, Standards & General Purposes Committee

Next steps

parsed

Report a draft medium-term financial plan underpinned by a transformation programme to Cabinet in December 2025.
Approve the final transformation programme and Medium-Term Financial Plan in February 2026.
Continue reporting environmental services cultural change progress to Cabinet in 2026.
Continue reporting housing compliance progress publicly to Cabinet every six months until compliance is achieved.
Report the updated HRA 30-year business plan to Cabinet in February 2026.
Strengthen internal control oversight and implementation of audit actions by 30 January 2026.
Sample test KPI accuracy and improve data-quality assurance by 31 March 2026.
Embed the contract management framework and establish procurement oversight arrangements by 31 March 2026.

Precedents

not built

"Decided elsewhere" is not built Finding the same decision in other councils needs semantic matching over decision text, which is part of the search rewrite. Until then, the council's own decisions list is the way through.