I was recently standing on a picket line at Birmingham’s largest waste depot with a case of deja vu. “We are massively underfunded. It does need changing,” Lee, a bin worker and union rep, told me. But the council’s current offer to end the strike isn’t good enough, he said. If it cuts wages the way it wants to, “people will lose their homes”.
We’ve been here before. In 2017, during seven hot and smelly summer weeks, similar interviews were conducted in the same spot and images of sky-high mounds of uncollected rubbish were beamed out of Birmingham. That dispute was almost the same as the one we’re living through now: the council wants to get rid of a role that poses a hefty equal pay risk. Essentially, workers in other parts of the council on a similar grade don’t get the same pay or perks, which means they can make costly claims for compensation via unions or no-win, no-fee lawyers. Although the problem reared its head eight years ago, it wasn’t properly addressed – those strikes ended with essentially the same role in place but under a different name, allowing expensive claims to mount.
The failure of Birmingham’s leaders to get to grips with the situation is a symptom of the council’s deeper disarray. As far as dysfunctional families go, Birmingham Labour is up there with the House of Windsor. Consumed by infighting and intermittent grabs for power from within its ranks, the group often seems so focused on internal strife that the business of running the city comes second. You don’t need to take my word for it. In May 2023, a Labour council improvement board (CIB) report found the group was “divided” with “briefing against colleagues” commonplace.
But it’s not just Labour. Historically, relationships between councillors and local government officers have been fraught. A 2014 government review into Birmingham found that members’ and officers’ roles were “blurred”, and the more recent CIB report highlighted a potential imbalance of power, with many members believing the council was “officer-led”. It was the most senior officer, then chief executive Deborah Cadman, who revealed in June 2023 that the council had a financial crisis on its hands. She informed councillors that the estimated potential bill the council owed in equal pay claims was between £650m and £760m.
Three months later, the council’s inability to pay for these claims was the number one reason for Birmingham issuing a section 114 notice, declaring effective bankruptcy. As if that news wasn’t dramatic enough, council leader John Cotton reportedly first learned of the decision to issue the notice while waiting to board a flight to New York for a family holiday, apparently blissfully unaware the authority was about to be plunged into chaos. Even the then local government secretary, Michael Gove, I am told, was bewildered by this move, given how unstable it made the council appear.
Gove’s diagnosis was swift: he quickly installed a team of austerity-obsessed commissioners in Birmingham who have overseen the worst cuts in local government history. To take just one example: by 2027, £48.1m will have been axed from children’s social care, with the cabinet member for children and families saying there is the “potential” for children to die.
And yet, last week, the real figure the council owes to workers making equal pay claims was revealed to be, not £760m after all, but £250m. True, Birmingham’s issues run deeper than that sum (it also has to pay for a disastrous new IT system that messed up its bookkeeping abilities, and has an existing budget gap of £300m), but to anyone watching the rolling news coverage that bleak autumn, the near-£800m bill for equal pay was the cause of our downfall – so why was the figure ever floated in the first place? Had it not been, the section 114 notice – the precursor to those brutal cuts – might never have been issued. As for Cadman, she unexpectedly resigned last March after being accused of misleading the council over the decision to publicise the equal pay sum.
Meanwhile, the Labour government in Westminster hardly seems interested in Birmingham, and its opponents are rubbing their hands with glee at the chance to make an example of the city. The shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick, got in early in February, with a dispatch on fly-tipping from Handsworth for GB News. Strolling around one of the city’s more deprived neighbourhoods, he pointed enthusiastically at the “hoards of filth” and discarded “soiled underwear”.
Last week, Nigel Farage held a rally in Birmingham featuring a theatrical set complete with overflowing bins, potholed roads and the message: “Your council is broken. Reform will fix it” illuminated on a screen. The Conservative shadow local government secretary, Kevin Hollinrake, appeared on Jeremy Kyle’s TalkTV show a few days ago after a visit to Birmingham, which he likened to a “third world country”. Even those of us frustrated with Labour will find little solace in such opportunism.
We are used to being ridiculed in Birmingham, to opening social media and seeing countless memes declaring our city is a “shithole”. I don’t know anyone who cares too much about that on a personal level – the Brummie disposition is typically light and self-deprecating. What we want, with increasing desperation, is a functioning city that is a pleasure to live in, not politicians falling over themselves to use us as their football. Birmingham’s motto, adopted in the mid 19th century when we were regarded as a municipal powerhouse and “the best-governed city in the world”, is “forward”. Today, it feels as if we are going round and round in circles.
#Infighting #austerity #opportunism #tale #Birminghams #decline #Kate #Knowles
