Finding the budget process a little confusing?

Don’t worry you are not alone, even councillors and council officers are admitting to The Argus that all the permutations and possibilities of this year’s budget setting process has left them scratching their heads.

Add in all the political spin and worst case scenarios, and it’s difficult to see the wood for the trees.

One shaft of light does come through from all this and it’s the realisation we can’t go on like this.

More and more councillors, officers and union figures are thinking the same thing - that things have to change.

With such a devastating loss of central Government funding, it becomes increasingly likely that councils will have to face up to the realisation that they can’t do things the way they used to.

How they can do that, and not hurt those in most desperate need for their services, certainly is not an easy puzzle to solve.

But it seems increasingly clear that this will be the last Brighton and Hove City Council budget of its kind, huge changes are afoot from May.