Decision - Field Officer Service Review

Brighton and Hove Tourism, Equalities, Communities & Culture Committee Decided 12 Jan 2023 for determination GET /api/coverage

Decision maker

Tourism, Equalities, Communities & Culture Committee

Report author

Jo Player

Published

12 Jan 2023

Reference

6804

As published

the council's own words, unedited

RESOLVED: That Committee: 1. Noted the outcome of the review of the field officer team as set out in the report. 2. Agreed in principle to ending the current field officer team arrangements from 1 st April 2023 and the reallocation of resources set out in paragraphs 3.22 and 3.23 of the report and delegates to the Executive Director Housing Neighbourhoods and Communities the final decision, following the conclusion of the appropriate staff consultation. 3. Recommended to Policy and Resources Committee that it approves any necessary changes to the Council's constitutional documents.

Parsed from the document

gpt-5.6-luna-2026-07-09 · 4260/959 tokens · 8915ms · parsed 9 Sep 2026 12:01

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 review found that the Field Officer Team had delivered some useful work but was not operating or funded as originally intended. The committee was asked to support ending the current arrangements from 1 April 2023, reallocating resources to housing services, environmental protection and unauthorised encampment work.

Recommendation

Note the review findings, agree in principle to end the Field Officer Team arrangements from 1 April 2023, reallocate its resources, delegate the final decision and implementation to the Executive Director for Housing Neighbourhoods and Communities after staff consultation, and recommend that Policy and Resources Committee approve any required constitutional changes.

Financial impact

The 2022/23 gross budget for the Field Officer Team was £0.386 million, funded by £0.322 million from the Safer Communities revenue budget and £0.064 million from the Housing Revenue Account. The proposed discontinuation would produce an estimated 2023/24 budget saving of £0.063 million.

Ward affected

city-wide

Decision maker

Tourism Equalities Communities and Culture Committee

Date in document

12 Jan 2023

Stakeholders named

parsed

Field Officer Team staffHousing servicesRegulatory ServicesSafer CommunitiesEnvironmental ProtectionCouncil housing tenantsLocal residentsSussex PolicePolicy and Resources Committee

Next steps

parsed

Complete the formal staff consultation.
The Executive Director for Housing Neighbourhoods and Communities will make the final decision and implement any service changes.
Reinvest the Housing Revenue Account contribution in local housing services.
Use the Safer Communities budget to create additional environmental protection posts and make the encampments coordinator role permanent.
Create an additional encampments coordinator post.
Offer the remaining approximately £63,000 as a saving.
Refer necessary constitutional changes to the Policy and Resources Committee.

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.