It reveals the chasm between east Brighton and the rest of the city has grown despite the investment programme.
While praising some of the work carried out, the report, from consultants Oxford Consultants for Social Inclusion, reads: “On every measure with the exception of pension credit, the benefit data trends identify that the most deprived areas have not closed the gap against the rest of the city.
“Indeed there is evidence that the most deprived areas are lagging further behind on some measures.”
The consultants revealed that people moving out of NDC areas are more likely to be older, in employment and moving into their own homes than people moving in.
This suggested those helped by the Government cash may have left the area to be replaced by others who are more likely to be on benefits.
The report reads: “Without changes in the functions of such areas, it can be argued that significant closing of the gap will be very hard to achieve.
“In this context, neighbourhood renewal efforts have been likened to trying to run up a downwards moving escalator.”
Many also feel that large sums from eb4U have been wasted on pet projects and ephemeral schemes.
To some, the empty hanging basket brackets around Whitehawk and Moulsecoomb are a symbol of eb4U’s failure to secure a legacy for east Brighton. The organisation earmarked £12,000 to buy and maintain 130 of the baskets to brighten up the post-war estates.
They were installed at a cost of more than £3,000 but soon after the money and the plants dried up, the baskets were removed.
Critics of eb4U say this is just one of many examples of profligacy and poor planning, while those behind the scheme point to the high number of successful projects.
In 2003, an employment tribunal held following a sacking at one of the eb4U projects gave a damning verdict on the scheme’s management.
It concluded: “The tribunal were deeply concerned that a project funded by public money should have so little supervision by the funding agency and the project manager.
“It is also a matter of concern that the contract’s implementation was placed in the hands of people who really did not seem to have the background and experience to administer a project involving a substantial sum of public money.
“It has to be said that there was no evidence before the tribunal which would justify a finding that any person had acted dishonestly in the handling of public funds but there is a great deal of evidence which justifies a lack of confidence in the way in which this project was administered.”
This sparked a Brighton and Hove City Council investigation, leading to a number of recommendations and changes.
Tony Greenstein, the secretary of Brighton and Hove’s Unemployed Workers Centre, represented the sacked worker during the case.
He said the scrutiny report was a whitewash and the scheme remained flawed despite the changes.
Mr Greenstein said: “Eb4U has been a complete disaster. Many of the projects delivered no discernible benefits and reproduced what the council was doing already.
“Lots of people signed up for money because they knew their way round the eb4U system.”
Hamish MacKenzie, of Newick Road, Moulsecoomb, resigned from the neighbourhood team involved with eb4U because of concerns about spending.
He said: “There were all these pet projects for £1,000 to set up this and £500 to set up that, and no one ever asked whether the community had benefited.
“I always thought that the £50 million was to make long-term improvements.
“It would be interesting to see how many projects are still running.
“No project, apart from the Bridge, has improved things in the long term.
“There is no sign of eb4U having been in north Moulsecoomb.”
But Councillor Anne Meadows, the chairwoman of the East Brighton Trust, which manages the property bought by eb4U, said the cash had brought benefits to the area.
She said: “The New Deal for Communities programme did start to deal with a lot of problems.
But it is very difficult in eight years to change two generations of inequalities.
“The NDC was about residents taking control and that did happen, and there has been an increase in resident participation.
“In terms of what was funded, this has been monitored.”
A spokesman for the East Brighton New Deal for Communities Partnership, the successor to eb4U, said: “The project has had many and varied benefits to people’s lives, many of these in ways that cannot be measured so may not have been picked up by the report. We remain proud of the work that has been done with the Government funding.”
Paul Allen, the director of the partnership at the council, defended the work carried out.
He said: “More than half of all the projects funded in east Brighton over the last eight years are continuing to benefit local people.
“These East Brighton New Deal for Communities funded projects have been sustained in some way, with either the whole project or part of it now funded by someone else or a project’s policy or services taken over by another provider. “ Eb4U’s community safety programme has been widely credited for helping to cut crime and tackle antisocial behaviour in east Brighton.
Funding for some of the services has been transferred to public bodies and will continue after the New Deal for Communities cash finally dries up at the end of the year.
But concern has been raised that the rest of the work will suffer when the funding stops and jobs will be lost.
Conservative Dee Simson, the council’s cabinet member for community affairs and inclusion, said she was lobbying hard to find fresh funding.
But she criticised the previous Labour administration and eb4U for their approach to spending the £47 million.
She said: “It was a lot of money and it hasn’t worked.
“I just think that the top-down approach was the wrong way to go about things.
“You shouldn’t just give people money and tell them to spend it.
“If you go down the community development route and get people interested so they build it up themselves, the project becomes sustainable.
“There have been some good things but there have been some huge sums of money when you are left asking ‘what has that produced?’.”