Plans for Birmingham City Council to be 'smaller and leaner' following financial crisis

A vision of Birmingham City Council’s future as a “smaller and leaner” organisation has been unveiled as the crisis-hit authority sets out its challenging path to recovery.

The council was forced to approve an unprecedented wave of cuts to local services last month, as well as a 10 per cent rise in council tax. Its dire predicament has been firmly in the spotlight recently, especially after it issued a section 114 notice last September – an alarming admission it was seriously struggling with its finances.

However, attention has now partly turned to how the council can be fundamentally reset and the ways it can be transformed in the coming months and years to “dramatically improve” its performance.

The council’s recently-published ‘improvement and recovery plan (IRP)’, set to be considered by cabinet members this week, says it is focused on “ensuring that the organisation is financially sustainable, well-run, and consequently delivers good quality services.”

“For too long the council has not met the standards that this great city expects,” it continued. It is clear that, in order to improve, the council requires a fundamental reset in the way that it thinks, feels and acts.

“This reset goes beyond dealing with immediate challenges and will look to build an organisation that is fit for the future.”

Offering a glimpse of what the council could therefore look like in the future, the plan continued: “The IRP will support and enable a future council that looks, feels and operates differently to now.

“It will be smaller, leaner, and more focused on value for money. It will operate as one council which puts our citizens, communities, and partners first.”

This could mean a more targeted range of services, leaner organisational structures and “consolidating and centralising” council activities.

Birmingham’s lead Government commissioner, sent in to oversee the city council’s path to recovery, also recently offered hope that the authority could be ‘great again’.

At a committee meeting last month, Max Caller appeared optimistic that BCC could turn things around in the future but added that it needs to “rein back its ambitions”.

“I think [council leader John Cotton] was absolutely right at the budget meeting to actually focus on getting the basics right, doing the details, making sure the services you are going to deliver are delivered consistently across the piece,” he said.

“That means we’re going to have to work very hard together to ensure you can keep on funding the regeneration of this city it absolutely needs”.

He continued that working relations between the city, the West Midlands Combined Authority and the business community would be crucial.

“They’re [the business community] are actually pretty desperate to help you,” he said. “The meetings I’ve had with them shows that they believe in you but they would just like to be better involved to help you do better.”

The improvement and recovery plan will be considered by Birmingham City Council’s cabinet meeting on Thursday, April 4.