Hostility over proposed ‘people’ cuts

was quoted saying that prior cuts to funding had already an impact on the ability to help the city’s rough sleepers.

He told the Guardian that in the past the YMCA would have taken the tragic rough sleeper and put him in a drug treatment programme, but these days, because they do not have the numbers of specialist staff, dealing with drug addicts is too much of a safety risk.

So piling further cuts to the funding for these services, as well as those who flee homes due to domestic violence, was greeted with hostility.

But Clancy’s majority held on this. “There’s no votes in helping the homeless,” was one backbencher’s assessment, “so if it’s a choice between that and shutting the local library, the library gets the money”.

Given the current focus on homelessness, and an ongoing scrutiny inquiry into rough sleeping suggests it will remain on the agenda, one suspects that this is one budget cut which may be reversed by the time the final business plan is presented to council in March.

His one rabbit from the hat has been the previously reported £24 million saving on pension deficit payments and now a £10 million reduction in the Service Birmingham IT contract – something he always promised to deliver. This has spared more brutal cuts to frontline services.

The budget was eventually voted through with only one vote of dissent – from Tahir Ali, the one time Clancy supporter who found himself dropped from the Cabinet in May.

But there is the caveat that after this years budget fiasco – the £49 million black hole and promised savings not being delivered – the new budget will be put to independent review and need to be signed off. It had better stand up to scrutiny this time. THE decision to cut the number of Birmingham councillors was always going to end up with an unseemly chicken run as would-be candidates rush to get selected for a diminishing number of winnable council seats.

Now, with 18 months still to go until boundary changes take effect, we have the first sighting of a councillor popping up in a part of the city they have hitherto shown little interest in.

Bournville councillor Timothy Huxtable has obviously had to go far to seek a seat as he is now being promoted by Hall Green Conservatives – pictured on their latest leaflet doing his bit to sort out fly-tipping problems in Baldwins Lane.

Under the existing boundaries Hall Green has recently veered from Lib Dem to Labour - but perhaps the Conservatives see this as highly winnable under the new arrangements. If not, it is disappointing to see one of their leading front-benchers cast out to a borderline seat.

The dash for seats was expected to start in next spring – but now it looks like the 2018 local election campaign is already well under way.

One suspects that this is one budget cut which may be reversed by the time the final plan is submitted