Another frustrating evening at Birmingham Full Council Tuesday 12th September as the Birmingham Leader refused to apologise to residents for causing it’s financial implosion despite being given 12 opportunities to do so.
And it is becoming increasingly clear that despite his efforts to blame budget cuts, this is an entirely self caused liability that was ignore for years, allowed to build up and accumulated into one overwhelming liability equal to the entire revenue budget of the city for one year.
Where are we? The unresolved pay liability is now likely to end up over one billion pounds, plus a £100m bill for the Oracle IT system, on top of a £87m in-year financial gap. All in all a very poor financial situation.
“Apologise to the women who weren’t fairly paid, to the residents who will lose services and pay more council tax, and to the staff who are going to lose their jobs because this administration did not do their jobs.”
Cllr Robert Alden.
When did he know? Cllr Cotton still maintains he only knew the scale of the issue after he ordered a financial review June 2023. This is despite being in charge of the city’s HR last year from May 2022, sitting on equal pay meetings and first joining the cabinet in 2012.
However it also emerged that former leader Ian Ward and his deputy Brigid Jones and new leader Cllr Cotton, at the time a cabinet member responsible for HR issues, were all involved in a February meeting where the huge bill was flagged by an officer, only for it to go unmentioned when a new city budget was unveiled weeks later.
This potentially means that the Leader misled the Chamber withholding/ omitting vital information pertinent to the city’s finances when we voted on it in May 2023. Crucially Equal Pay was deemed ‘Low Risk’ in a report.
What now? There is an Emergency Council Meeting 25th September where a recovery plan will be presented and a further opportunity for scrutiny and to work out how the largest authority in Europe has become bankrupt. All new spending in the city has been frozen andneeds to be approved by the finance officer. The city then moves into deciding what is essential and statutory services, and what services can have their funding cut or reduced.