Labour ‘hopeless’ with city’s money

DEAR Editor, Some readers may have seen the comments from the former Labour leader Councillor Albert Bore that Birmingham is facing another budget crisis – which we have become quite used to under Labour, who consistently fail to live within their means.

Labour may agree or disagree with the funding they have been given (and they already get more per head than almost any other local authority in the country) but, for as long as they are in power, it is their job to balance the books and they just don’t seem to be able to do this.

Councillor Bore’s comments arose in response to amendments to the letter that the city’s auditors had to present to the audit committee in light of the worsening budget situation, basically saying that their concerns over Labour’s budget mismanagement are such that the party’s savings plans needs to be ‘reset’ and that the current budget overspend is so serious it needs to be presented to full council, which will happen in January.

Having failed to achieve their planned savings last year, it was all too obvious to any citizen of Birmingham who has to balance their own household or business budget that Labour’s March budget contained undeliverable promises and the Conservative Group said as much in full council.

All this came to the audit committee after I had already complained that the committee’s Labour chairman had used ‘authority to act’ between meetings to sign off substantial amendments to the published accounts