On Green Paper

County Council – 20 May 2025

People Scrutiny Committee’s report paragraph 2

Amendment to be proposed by Councillor Cross

The People Scrutiny Committee recommends the County Council to -    

Y consider the matter in relation to the decision made by Cabinet on 25 February to reduce the funding for the Housing-Related Floating Support Service and (delete the following wording) what action, if any, to take [add the following words] refer the matter back to the Cabinet setting out the Council’s views as set out below.

The council’s views are:

· Since the call in by People Scrutiny in March, District’s & Boroughs have engaged in dialogue with BHT Sussex regarding contributing towards contract funding – Cabinet should examine these proposals before making a final decision.

· Cabinet should give adequate consideration to proposals from BHT Sussex for a reduced service at £2m 

(BHT Sussex who currently provide the service suggested an alternative proposal to reduce the contract value by £2 million (46% reduction) instead of the proposed 88.4%. They have indicated that this would enable 3,500 people to be supported based on the current commissioned service model and noted that further remodelling of the service could further increase the number of people supported and safeguard service quality and successful outcomes.)

· Given that it is counterproductive to close services that will have to be restarted by the future unitary councils, Cabinet is asked to find funding from reserves to make up the £1m shortfall. (500k already committed by ESCC to continue + 5000k being committed by Ds&Bs + 1m shortfall to make £2m proposal of BHT Sussex)

· Given the rises in demand and costs for children’s services, we would like the Cabinet to fully assess how cutting the homelessness support would impact the demand for children’s services in the short to medium term and how this will affect the budget. (The Children’s services team provided an answer to a question from their recent briefing about the impact of homelessness on children’s services: “Demand for homelessness prevention services is high across East Sussex, some areas of the county report rates of homelessness twice that of the England average. There are currently over 1,200 households living in temporary accommodation. This trend can have a significant negative affect on these households and is also creating an unsustainable financial pressure on the local system.”)