The Contract
On 31 December 2025 — the final day of the calendar year — Brighton & Hove City Council awarded a contract worth £18,863,930.40 for the management of temporary accommodation to Base One Holdings Ltd. The contract runs for six years, representing an annual value of approximately £3.14 million. It covers 209 units of temporary accommodation — an average cost, across the contract term, of roughly £41 per unit per night.
The contract was not put out to competitive tender. Instead, it was awarded directly under the urgency provisions of the Procurement Act 2023 — the legislation that governs public purchasing in England, Wales and Northern Ireland following the repeal of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. Specifically, the council invoked Schedule 5 of the Act, which permits limited tendering in circumstances of genuine urgency.
The Urgency Provision
Schedule 5 of the Procurement Act 2023 allows contracting authorities to award contracts without competition where "the circumstances giving rise to the need for the goods, services or works are unforeseeable" and "the time limits for a competitive tendering procedure cannot be complied with." The provision is intended for genuine emergencies — not for circumstances that a diligent authority should have been able to anticipate.
This is a critical legal threshold. The coalition's position is that Brighton & Hove's housing crisis — well-documented in council reports, budget papers, and public accounts for multiple consecutive years — cannot credibly be described as "unforeseeable." The council's own figures show 2,170 households in temporary accommodation at peak (November 2025) and a forecast overspend of £4.8 million against a £28 million temporary accommodation budget. These are not surprise figures. They are the product of a long-running, structurally underfunded housing crisis that the council has been managing, and reporting on, for years.
Base One Holdings: Who Are They?
Base One Holdings Ltd was incorporated in May 2023 — approximately 31 months before it was awarded an £18.86 million public contract. At the time of its most recent annual filing available on Companies House, the company reported assets of approximately £55,000.
This contrast — a company with £55,000 in reported assets receiving a nearly £19 million contract — is the central financial fact at the heart of this investigation. The coalition is not suggesting that Base One Holdings is incapable of managing temporary accommodation. Rather, we are asking the question that the procurement process should have answered: what due diligence was conducted, and on what basis was this company selected over competitors who were never given the chance to bid?
The company manages 209 units under this contract. At approximately £41 per unit per night — an average derived from the total contract value — this places Base One Holdings among the higher-cost providers in the temporary accommodation market, though variations in property type, location, and specification make direct comparison complex.
The Council's Temporary Accommodation Crisis
To understand the context in which this contract was awarded, it is necessary to understand the scale of Brighton & Hove's temporary accommodation challenge. As of November 2025, the council was placing approximately 520 households per night into temporary accommodation across its portfolio. At peak, 2,170 households were simultaneously in temporary accommodation — a figure that represents a significant proportion of the city's most vulnerable residents.
The council's temporary accommodation budget for 2025–26 was set at £28 million. By the time this contract was awarded, the forecast overspend stood at £4.8 million — a 17% overrun. This is not a crisis that emerged suddenly; it is one that has been growing, and has been reflected in successive council budget reports.
The coalition does not dispute that the council faces enormous pressures in providing temporary accommodation. What we challenge is the conclusion that this pressure justified bypassing competitive tendering for a six-year, £18.86 million contract. If anything, a budget under this level of strain demands more scrutiny of procurement, not less.
What the Published Decision Record Shows
The coalition has reviewed the publicly available decision record for this contract, published on the council's democracy portal. The record confirms the direct-award route, the contract value, the term, and the urgency provision cited. What it does not contain — at least in the publicly accessible version — is a detailed explanation of how Base One Holdings was identified as the preferred supplier, what other providers were considered or approached, what due diligence was conducted on the company, and what benchmarking was done on the pricing.
These are not unreasonable questions to ask of any £18.86 million public contract. They are the questions that a competitive tender would automatically have answered. In the absence of that process, the public — and indeed the council's own elected members — are reliant on what the decision-maker chose to put in the published record. The coalition believes that record, as published, does not adequately discharge the public interest obligation that comes with a direct award of this size.
The Democratic Accountability Question
The Audit & Standards Committee is the principal mechanism by which Brighton & Hove City Council scrutinises its own financial decisions. The coalition has written to the committee calling for a formal inquiry into this contract. The questions we believe it should be asking include: Was the urgency genuine and unforeseeable within the meaning of Schedule 5? What selection process, if any, was used to identify Base One Holdings? What financial due diligence was conducted given the company's asset position? Is the contract priced competitively, and was any benchmarking done? Who approved the decision and at what level of delegated authority?
These are not hostile questions — they are the standard questions of good governance. A council spending public money under emergency provisions is not exempt from scrutiny; if anything, the exemption from competitive tendering makes such scrutiny more necessary, not less.
What the Coalition Is Calling For
- Full publication of the procurement justification, including the selection rationale for Base One Holdings, the due diligence conducted, and any benchmarking against market rates.
- An independent audit of the £18.86 million contract by the Council's Audit & Standards Committee, with findings published within 60 days.
- Competitive tendering for any contract renewal, extension, or future housing management procurement above £100,000.
- The Cabinet Member for Housing and the Council Leader to provide a full written statement to Full Council on this contract and the procurement route used.
"A housing crisis years in the making is not an unforeseeable emergency. It is the product of chronic underfunding, policy failure, and inadequate planning. Invoking emergency procurement powers in this context does not reflect the spirit of the Procurement Act 2023."
In the Public Interest
Brighton & Hove Housing Coalition publishes this investigation in the public interest. The spending of £18.86 million of public money, in a city facing acute housing pressures, on a contract awarded without competitive tender is a matter of legitimate public concern. We have based this investigation on publicly available documents, published corporate records, and council budget papers. We have sought to be accurate, fair, and proportionate.
We invite Brighton & Hove City Council to respond publicly to the questions raised in this investigation. We will publish any response in full.