‘I wouldn’t have done it’ - former Birmingham City Council adviser says Commonwealth Games was a mistake

A former adviser to Birmingham City Council has said that hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2022 was a mistake due to the financial issues within Europe’s largest local authority.

The city council announced on Tuesday it could no longer balance its books and issued a Section 114 notice. Local authorities in the UK can’t go bankrupt but the notice means they are unable to spend money, which is why it’s often reffered to being ‘effectively bankrupt’.

The council made an alarming admission earlier this summer that it couldn’t afford to pay its equal pay liability - which is currently in the region of £650m and £760m and continuing to accrue at an estimated rate of between £5 million and £14 million a month.

Deputy leader Sharon Thompson described the decision as a “necessary step to get us back on strong financial ground” and pointed to the unprecedented number of councils across the country facing financial issues.

The city hosted the Games in 2022 in what was seen as a historical and vitally important event for Birmingham and the West Midlands. But former adviser to the council, Max Caller, a former non-executive director to the council who was appointed in 2019, told the BBC’s Today programme that the event altered the council’s focus from it’s financial problems to the Games.

In 2019, the Commonwealth Games Federation - the organisation that oversees the competition - revealed that the Birmingham 2022 games would cost an estimated £778 million.- split 75-25 between UK central government and Birmingham City Council.

Mr Caller told the programme: “The problem with councils that are in trouble is they just need to focus on getting better, rather than trying to do nice new things.

“There is a limit to the amount of political and managerial capacity and if you’re spending time doing Commonwealth Games you cannot cope with the serious problems that you already face.”

Mr Caller said he advised the council at the time that the Games would be a ‘step too far’, “I wouldn’t have done it,” he said.