Birmingham City Council in Serious Financial Mess

[spen666]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-66715441


This is not going to help Mr Starmer to show voters Labour can be trusted with the economy.

No doubt the usual suspects will try to minimise this, claim it is a local issue etc and they will no doubt convince themselves what they say is true, but its not going to convince the electorate at large who need to vote Labour to get rid of the Tories from power at next General Election

 

[Fab Foodie]

https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/local-government-funding-england

 

[newfhouse]

Oh.

See also Tory Thurrock, Tory Northamptonshire, Labour Slough, Labour Croydon.

Maybe it’s the system that demands or at least encourages speculation (read gambling) that’s wrong, not just the party in power locally.

 

[Bromptonaut]

Councils in financial difficulty are far from being a Labour thing. As already pointed out Thurrock and Northamptonshire both got into trouble while under the Conservatives.

I live in Northamptonshire and watched the process through my fingers. Basically they tried to go down the 'Easy Council' route where all services were bought in from contractors. Unfortunately the councillor's and/or officers lacked the skills to make it happen and the money ran out.

Max Caller, the go to man for reports on dysfunctional councils was excoriating.

Thurrock seems to have thought it could buck the market and make a fortune from green power. What exactly happened isn't yet clear and I think Plod is all over it....

It may well be that all these cases are down to central government and the funding models they use...

 

[Pale Rider]

Part of the problem is local authorities meddling in things they have no business to and are dangerously inept at.

The fact that a sharp/shyster businessman can outwit Thurrock council should come as no surprise to anyone.

Local authorities should stick to keeping the roads swept, the bins emptied, and the street lights burning.

Trouble is that's boring and doesn't appeal to the vainglorious t*ssers who inhabit too many of our town halls.

 

[spen666]

No surprise that people start the whataboutery re other councils in the past.

That is missing the point. This is the current one. The one people are most likely to remember and also the one that hits Labour where they are at their most vulnerable - namely in the public perception that they cannot be trusted with the economy.

It is the one allegation that Labour struggle to get away from and this huge council getting into a financial mess is not going to help with that perception

 

[Bromptonaut]

The fact that other councils have gone bust and that political control of those that have has been pretty evenly spread might stop the Tories from being too cock a hoop in public over Birmingham's problems.

Greg Hands was shown his own arse for diving in without thought on X this morning...

 

[Bromptonaut]

Part of the problem is local authorities meddling in things they have no business to and are dangerously inept at.

The fact that a sharp/shyster businessman can outwit Thurrock council should come as no surprise to anyone.

Local authorities should stick to keeping the roads swept, the bins emptied, and the street lights burning.

Trouble is that's boring and doesn't appeal to the vainglorious t*ssers who inhabit too many of our town halls.

Agree that focussing on the essentials should be the thing.

The number of Council's burned by banking scandals from BCCI through the collapse Iceland's banks etc and via business 'partnerships' suggests that there may be something in the regulatory water that encourages risks.

 

[AndyRM]

Local councils have been having their funding cut to pieces by the government for the best part of a decade. Obviously this is an extreme case of mismanagement, but nobody comes out of it looking good, so I'd be surprised if the Conservatives used it to score any points.

As an aside, Oracle is an absolute joke of a system, but they sell it effectively. The only HR tool I've used which was worse is Hydra. There was a time when my old employer used both at the same time. Hellish.

 

[newfhouse]

Greg Hands was shown his own arse for diving in without thought on X this morning...

They have form for this, trying to blame the Woking Lib Dems that had been in power for three weeks when the financial plug was finally pulled. I suppose it reinforces the message with the wilfully partisan even if it fails to persuade anyone else.

 

[Beebo]

How big is this equality pay claim?

They say it is costing £760,000,000.

As a rough calculation. If they have 10,000 affected employees they would be paying them £76,000 each!

I don’t buy that as a full excuse.

 

[multitool]

Let's talk about the UK's national debt after 13 years of Tory, shall we?It's now greater than GDP.

The old canard about Labour not being economically competent only holds sway with ageing gammon.

Everyone else has two questions to ask themselves. Are they better off now than they were 13 years ago? Are public services better now than they were 13 years ago.

Birmingham City Council is neither here nor there.

 

[classic33]

No surprise that people start the whataboutery re other councils in the past.

That is missing the point. This is the current one. The one people are most likely to remember and also the one that hits Labour where they are at their most vulnerable - namely in the public perception that they cannot be trusted with the economy.

It is the one allegation that Labour struggle to get away from and this huge council getting into a financial mess is not going to help with that perception

This is one you might remember. Kirklees Council are looking at getting bailed out by the other councils in West Yorkshire, rather than file for bankruptcy.

Unfortunately two of them are not far of having to do the same. The local council is now looking at possibly filing for bankruptcy. They have sold buildings for much less than market value, and are now renting buildings they owned less than ten years ago. Often with work costing millions being done beforehand.
There's "vanity projects" that make little or no sense being carried out. A town of under 12,000 is getting a new bypass built. Reasons given include passenger numbers at a railway station(Site is known to to be a flood risk) yet to be built will increase, and the current A629 up to Junction 24 isn't fast enough. An extra four lanes of traffic to pass under the M62. They've yet to show how or where it will pass under it.

And it's a Labour and Co-Operative controlled council.

 

[Pale Rider]

How big is this equality pay claim?

They say it is costing £760,000,000.

As a rough calculation. If they have 10,000 affected employees they would be paying them £76,000 each!

I don’t buy that as a full excuse.

Fair question.

They've apparently paid our £1.1bn already.

That's since 2012, so we are talking about ten years or so.

Reports also say the remaining £760m bill is growing at about £15m a month.

Surely, so long after the judgment, they can't still be paying unequal wages, so perhaps the £15m is interest on claims still to be settled.

Given the council is always going to spend most of its income on services, being hit with a £2bn bill in 2012 was always going to be a challenge, even with time to pay.

 

[BoldonLad]

Councils in financial difficulty are far from being a Labour thing. As already pointed out Thurrock and Northamptonshire both got into trouble while under the Conservatives.

I live in Northamptonshire and watched the process through my fingers. Basically they tried to go down the 'Easy Council' route where all services were bought in from contractors. Unfortunately the councillor's and/or officers lacked the skills to make it happen and the money ran out.

Max Caller, the go to man for reports on dysfunctional councils was excoriating.

Thurrock seems to have thought it could buck the market and make a fortune from green power. What exactly happened isn't yet clear and I think Plod is all over it....

It may well be that all these cases are down to central government and the funding models they use...

True, and, no doubt, in some instances, the integrity.

To me, the lack of competence of people paid substantial salaries, who appear to be like football managers, ie, fail at one place, just go through the. revolving door to another, is, or should be, a major concern.