| BRUTIFUL BIRMINGHAM Begging for answers as city homeless feel rough justice

Birmingham Mail front page highlighting the £10 million cut at a time when a rough sleeper has died on our streets.

Mr Griffiths said that the services are essentials – but that difficult decisions need to be made. We also heard how the council is talking to dozens of charities and agencies which provide housing services to see how the impact of cuts could be minimised.

So it was more than a little disappointing that such answers could not be provided.

It seems that a figure of £5.2 million this year, with a further £4.8 million in 2018, really has been plucked out of the air – and now officials will have to scurry around to find ways of making it work.

At one point Mr Griffiths was asked by Conservative housing spokesman Gary Sambrook whether they had started with a figure and worked backwards.

Cllr Griffiths replied: “We need to save it, but we also need to have the debate about how much we can save.”

Instead there will be talks and consultation and one suspects that by the end of it all the figure will be ground down by a gracious council leadership keen to show it is listening.

THREE of the four mayoral candidates were lined up by the Resolution Foundation thinktank to talk about the West Midlands’ dreadful record on employment and what is needed for a corner to be turned this week.

All three, Andy Street, Siôn Simon and Beverley Nielsen were well mannered enough to welcome the Foundation’s conclusions and promise to take on board recommendations if elected next year.

The analysis of structural problems in the jobs market caused by a failure to properly equip people – particularly the young – to the post-industrial world were not disputed.

This included the powerful point that the pattern of deprivation, low skills and structural unemployment has been largely unchanged for three decades under Governments and councils of all political persuasions.

Certainly one of the biggest challenges facing the new mayor will be to set the region on the right track to deliver half a million extra jobs by 2030.

Given the floor, it was clear that while there is, so far, only modest policy differences, the styles of the Conservative and Labour front runners differ wildly.

Conservative Andy Street, a man more used to the boardroom than a political bear pit, offered a power point slide show – demonstrating the skills challenge facing the region with graphs and charts, and outlining where investment is needed to create the skilled, well paid jobs.

He has been chairman of the Greater Birmingham Local Enterprise Partnership for five years and knows this stuff inside out.

Labour Siôn Simon, the one-time MP turned MEP delivered a speech with more of an appeal to the heart which would play equally well in church hall hustings.

He talked about the region’s strengths as a cradle of invention and linked economic ambitions directly to social development – especially better housing.

He used no notes or slides as it is a theme he has consistently spoken about going back to his ill-fated bid to become Birmingham mayor in 2012.

This is a very early stage in the mayoral campaign and things are likely to become more lively as May draws near.

However, there is one reason to be optimistic. This column has previously complained at the lack of a premier league political figure, in the mould of Boris or Ken, emerging for the West Midlands top job.

But as several members of the invited audience reflected at the event, all three candidates in front of them seem very capable and none would set alarm bells ringing if elected.

For that we should be grateful.

All three candidates in front of them seem very capable and none would set alarm bells ringing if elected