Brighton and Hove's Council Is Asking the Government for 30 Million Pounds It Does Not Have. Refuse, and Its Own Finance Officer Says the Next Step Is a Section 114 Notice.
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In short. A Targeted Budget Management report taken to Brighton and Hove City Council's Cabinet on 15 October 2026 forecasts a General Fund overspend of 23.835 million pounds for 2026/27, a position that deteriorated by 2.983 million pounds in the single month since the previous report, with a further 18.862 million pounds of identified risk not yet folded into that number [1]. The council's Chief Finance Officer, Elizabeth Griffiths, tells Cabinet directly that the authority's reserves cannot cover the gap and that it has already approached the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government for further Exceptional Financial Support, expected to be up to 30 million pounds [1]. Her report states that if that support is not approved, she will be forced to issue a section 114 notice [1].
Section 114 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 is the mechanism a council's own finance officer uses to declare that spending cannot be met from available resources. It is the formal marker of a council in financial crisis, the same step Birmingham, Nottingham and Thurrock have each taken in recent years. Brighton and Hove has not issued one. What its own report to Cabinet shows is a council whose finance officer has put the possibility in writing as the consequence of being refused the bailout she is asking for.
What the report says
The Targeted Budget Management report for Month 5, covering the period to the end of August 2026, sets the council's forecast outturn for the General Fund at 373.196 million pounds against a budget of 349.361 million pounds, an overspend of 23.835 million pounds, or 6.8 percent [1]. That is 2.983 million pounds worse than the position reported for Month 4, and the report includes a separate table of 18.862 million pounds in additional risks that have not been included in the headline figure at all, meaning the true exposure could be higher still [1]. A graph in the report shows this year's forecast starting higher than in previous years and continuing to rise through the first part of the year, the opposite of the pattern the council says it has seen before [1].
Four directorates and a block of centrally-held budgets make up the total. Homes and Adult Social Care is forecasting the largest overspend in cash terms, 12.995 million pounds against a budget of 160.867 million pounds, a variance of 8.1 percent [1]. Families, Children and Wellbeing is overspending by 3.578 million pounds, City Operations by 2.071 million pounds and Central Hub by 0.910 million pounds [1]. Centrally-held budgets, a smaller pot at 16.806 million pounds, are forecasting the steepest percentage overspend of any line, 25.5 percent, which the report attributes mainly to a 1.125 million pound delay in savings expected from the council's Organisational Transformation programme and 0.550 million pounds of newly quantified one-off costs for schools reorganisation [1].
Where the pressure sits inside social care
The report is explicit that Adult Social Care is the largest single driver of the Homes and Adult Social Care position, pointing to demand for community, nursing and residential care running above budgeted assumptions and to rising complexity and cost in individual care packages [1]. What the report does not show is a service failing to make savings: it states that Adult Social Care remains on track to deliver more than 80 percent of its planned savings and mitigations, and that savings elsewhere in service budgets, outside the separate transformation programmes, are running at 71 percent delivered or strongly expected to be [1]. The gap, in other words, is demand and cost growth outpacing a savings programme that is substantially on track, not a programme that has stalled. Separately, the report flags that growth in Education, Health and Care Plans is placing pressure on both home-to-school transport budgets and the Dedicated Schools Grant's High Needs Block, as more children require specialist provision, often outside Brighton and Hove, at higher unit cost [1].
Two deficits the headline number does not include
Two further positions sit outside the General Fund altogether. The Housing Revenue Account, which funds the council's own housing stock and is legally required to be self-financing, is forecasting an overspend of 1.145 million pounds [1]. The Dedicated Schools Grant, ring-fenced funding for pupils with additional needs, is forecasting an in-year overspend of 7.368 million pounds, taking its cumulative deficit to 9.130 million pounds, which the report attributes to rising demand in the High Needs Block [1]. Neither figure appears in the 23.835 million pound headline overspend, because both sit outside the General Fund on the council's books, even though the report notes the council remains responsible for managing them and that the Department for Education is scrutinising past DSG expenditure across all councils ahead of a planned partial write-off of accumulated deficits [1].
The ask, and what happens if it is refused
The report's concluding section, written by Griffiths as Chief Finance Officer under the Section 151 duty that makes her personally responsible for the council's financial administration, states that the council's reserves are insufficient to offset the overspend and that it has approached the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government for further Exceptional Financial Support for 2026/27, expected to be up to 30 million pounds [1]. She is careful to note what that support actually is: additional borrowing authority, not additional funding, meaning the council pays it back with interest in future years rather than receiving a grant [1]. The report's own risk section states the consequence of refusal without qualification: if the further Exceptional Financial Support is not approved, the Chief Finance Officer would be forced to issue a section 114 report on the grounds that expected expenditure cannot be met by expected income [1]. Cabinet was asked only to note the forecast figures at this meeting; the decision on whether to formally apply, and the government's decision on whether to grant it, both still lie ahead [1].
This is not Brighton and Hove's first approach to central government this year. In July, the council was one of fourteen authorities awarded a share of a separate, smaller 91 million pound government fund aimed at transforming high-cost services, receiving 6.4 million pounds to pilot closer integration between its reablement service and the NHS, intended to get people home sooner after a hospital stay [2]. That money was meant to reduce exactly the kind of demand pressure the October report now says is driving the overspend.
What the politics looked like, separate from the figures
At the same Cabinet meeting, opposition Green councillor Ollie Sykes told the meeting that "this Labour administration has clearly lost control of council finances" and that the authority was "in a worse position than at any time in the past 25 years," pointing to the scale of overspend on both adult and children's services and on delivery of savings [3]. Council leader Bella Sankey rejected the framing, telling the meeting it was "ironic" for the Greens to raise loss of financial control given, in her words, "that is, sadly, something that they did when they were in administration and something we have sought to reverse" [3]. Deputy leader Jacob Taylor said the administration's approach was a transformation programme rather than blunt cuts: "We're not going to shut all of our libraries, all our nursery provisions, stop refurbishing our playgrounds, to try and hack back to a balanced position" [3]. Those are the politicians' own characterisations of who is responsible; the report itself, at every point this site has cited above, attributes the pressure to demand and cost growth in care and schools provision outrunning a savings programme that it also describes as substantially on track.
The numbers are not in dispute between any of them. What happens if the government says no to 30 million pounds is the question nobody at the table on 15 October answered.
Sources
- Brighton and Hove City Council, report to Cabinet, "Targeted Budget Management (TBM) 2026/27 Month 5 (August)" (15 October 2026), agenda item 60. https://democracy.brighton-hove.gov.uk/documents/s217790/Targeted%20Budget%20Management%20TBM%20202627%20Month%205%20August.pdf
- Civic Scrutiny, "Ministers Handed 14 Councils 91 Million Pounds to Fix What Is Breaking Them. The Two Biggest Bailout Requests on the List Got Nothing." https://www.civic-scrutiny.co.uk/2026-updates/91-million-pound-fund-councils-exceptional-financial-support.html
- Brighton and Hove News, "Council budget black hole 'worst in 25 years'" (Sarah Booker-Lewis, local democracy reporter, 15 October 2026). https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2026/10/15/council-budget-black-hole-worst-in-25-years/