Four dramatic moments from tense Birmingham City Council budget meeting where alarming cuts approved
There were painful echoes of last year’s bleak scenes at Birmingham City Council as another alarming budget was set.
Today’s critical meeting saw councillors vote to pass through the proposed 2025/26 budget, which includes a huge raft of cuts to local services in a bid to make savings of around £150 million.
The Labour-run council is also planning to hike council tax by around 7.5 per cent, after another rise of just under 10 per cent last year, and increase fees and charges for hundreds of council services.
It is the council’s second budget since the authority declared itself effectively bankrupt back in 2023, sparking dismay and deep concern across the city.
Much like in 2024, there were scenes of protest outside in Victoria Square as well as grim predictions for Brum’s future.
The council’s crisis has far-reaching impacts, affecting bin collections, culture, libraries, parks, street lighting, adult social care day centres and much, much more.
External auditors recently highlighted several issues and missteps which contributed to the financial woes, including the alleged equal pay liability, inadequate budget setting, poor service management, demand led pressures and the disastrous implementation of a new IT and finance system.
But many Labour councillors have also pointed to the impact of funding cuts over the past decade or so and how councils ‘of all political stripes’ across the country are struggling.
With more misery now likely on the way, here are four of the most dramatic moments from Tuesday’s budget meeting as anxiety and friction over Birmingham’s financial turmoil continues.
1) Striking bin men and residents gather for protest
Striking bin workers and residents fighting back against cuts to local services joined forces to protest outside the council house ahead of the meeting.
Refuse workers who are members of Unite began industrial action in January over the scrapping of a waste recycling and collection officer role, which the union described as “safety-critical”.
This proposal was one of many included in the budget considered today.
Zoe Mayou, regional officer at Unite, was at the demonstration and said: “We have a lot of support [from residents] – we are not doing this strike to hold the city to ransom.”
Meanwhile James Cross said his uncle, who has used Harborne Day Centre for more than four decades, had been impacted by the planned closure of the centre.
“It’s been really stressful,” he said about the council’s planned changes. “He’s severely disabled.”
He urged the council to “stop wasting money” and criticised the government-appointed commissioners brought in to oversee the council’s recovery.
“They’re not really versatile,” he said. “They need to think outside the box but they’re just making cut after cut.”
Services at the closing centres are set to move to the five remaining day centres in Birmingham, which the council said could take place this month.
Coun Rob Pocock, who is overseeing the council’s transformation, said last year the authority had to save on costs and the remaining centres “need to be fully utilised”.
2) Fears over rats the ‘size of cats’
One recurring concern raised during the budget meeting was the fears over rubbish and rats amid the ongoing bin strike.
Coun Robert Alden, Conservative leader at the council, slammed the “double whammy” of higher taxes and less services and added that the sight of litter in the streets discourages investment into Birmingham.
“Take a look along any of the arterial routes into the city, be it road or rail, and you can see rubbish everywhere you look,” he said.
“This is the city that Birmingham Labour have created and the city they are showing to investors.
“Under Labour’s budget litter will go up, bins will go fortnightly and rats will spread.”
Fellow Conservative councillor Adam Higgs referred to reports of “rats the size of cats” being spotted in Birmingham.
Like the other opposition parties, the Conservatives at the council put forward an amendment to the budget which they said would protect important services.
“Our Conservative Plan for a cleaner city would keep weekly bin collections, increase street cleaning and scrap Labour’s ‘rat tax’,” Coun Alden said in a statement this week.
Council leader John Cotton said the transformation of the waste service was necessary while a spokesperson for the authority recently said it had made a “fair and reasonable offer” to Unite.
3) Battleground set for next year’s election amid blame game
With an all-out election taking place in the city council next year, opposition councillors were unsurprisingly making grim predictions for Birmingham Labour.
Roger Harmer, leader of the council’s Liberal Democrat group, for instance argued that Labour’s time running the city was “coming to a close”.
But cabinet member Rob Pocock said voters will recognise the “courage” his administration has shown when they go to the polls in May 2026.
The political blame game over the authority’s financial woes saw council leader John Cotton point the finger at both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats today amid funding cuts over the past decade or so.
He added there has been a crisis in local government “14 years in the making” and went on to praise the council’s relationship with new Labour ministers.
4) Leader says ‘sorry’ over impact of cuts and council tax rise
Coun Cotton started today’s budget speech by apologising for how residents and communities have been impacted by the authority’s financial crisis during the past two years.
But he went on to say that council is now “moving in the right direction” and that its recovery journey continues at pace.
He then said sorry for a second time – this time, for how council tax is set to rise above the “4.99 per cent threshold” once again.
“I want to be absolutely clear – that will not be the case next year,” he added.
Council tax is set to rise by around 7.5 per cent in 2025/26, which follows an increase of just under 10 per cent last year.
Coun Cotton concluded his opening speech by saying that during challenging times, the Labour council continues ‘to be on the side of the people of Birmingham’.
He acknowledged that there is still much to do in terms of the council’s recovery but added: “We will do it.”