Birmingham to embark on 'era-defining moment' with city council recovery plan

Birmingham is set to embark on an ‘era-defining moment’ after the city council’s proposed path to recovery took an important step forward.

The crisis-hit council was forced to approve an enormous wave of cuts to local services last month, as well as a 10 per cent rise in council tax.

Its alarming situation has sparked anxiety and protests in the months that followed the council issuing a section 114 notice last September – a sobering admission that it was seriously struggling with its finances.

However the council’s recently-published ‘improvement and recovery plan (IRP)’, discussed by cabinet members this week, gave a glimpse of how it intends to turn its fortunes around. The plan says it is focused on “ensuring that the organisation is financially sustainable, well-run, and consequently delivers good quality services.”

“It is clear that, in order to improve, the council requires a fundamental reset in the way that it thinks, feels and acts,” it continues. “This reset goes beyond dealing with immediate challenges and will look to build an organisation that is fit for the future.”

The Labour council’s challenging road to recovery would involve tackling issues such as the equal pay claims, making savings, changing the culture of the council and becoming a ‘smaller and leaner’ organisation.

“I think we’ve got an improvement plan which is bold, honest and candid in recognising the case for change,” cabinet member Rob Pocock said at Thursday’s meeting. “I think we can all recognise we come to an era-defining moment where we set Birmingham on a new course.

“Smaller, leaner, more efficient, more productive council focused on getting the basics right.”

Roger Harmer, leader of the Liberal Democrats at Birmingham City Council, meanwhile questioned whether there was enough “stability” following recent high-profile departures. We have in recent weeks seen the chief executive and the cabinet member for finance go so we are still some way from having that stability behind these improvements,” he argued.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service after the meeting, council leader John Cotton insisted that the council was in a good position as it embarks on a “journey of change and transformation.”

“With the departure of the former chief executive, Graeme Betts is now acting as the interim chief executive,” he said. “Graeme brings a wealth of experience and knowledge so that’s really important we’ve got that stability of leadership.

“We’ll continue to build a stable, top team that’s able to deliver the challenging targets we set ourselves in that improvement plan,” he added.

Following the cabinet meeting, Conservative councillor Robert Alden said the IRP should “be about delivering the cultural change needed to get the basics right” and “delivering services to the standard residents deserve.”

‘We’ve got to think about how we do business differently’

Discussing the council’s culture, Cllr Cotton said: “Cultural change is absolutely key to the delivery of the wider improvement and recovery plan.

“We’ve got to think about how we do business differently – it’s one of the reasons why I set out in the budget speech the need for us to be a council that shares power more.

“That’s about how we share power with communities, how we work better with lots of the partner organisations out there from the very big businesses and public sector institutions right down to our local community and voluntary groups. 

“We need to be working in a far more dynamic and creative way, more open to comment and engagement from those organisations.”

He added the council was carrying out a ‘stabilisation plan’ following a report by the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny which previously highlighted issues concerning the council’s culture. We’ve working very hard as a cabinet team, together with the officers and council, to implement those recommendations,” he said.

At Thursday’s meeting, the council’s cabinet agreed on the ‘aims, outcomes and priorities’ of the IRP and to recommend that the city council approves it.