Shifting the blame over budget crisis

THE latest financial monitoring report showed that Birmingham City Council is projected to overshoot its planned spending by £69 million in 2016/17. This means that since instigating a “mid-year review” in September and promising robust action, things have actually got worse.

The direct result of this overspend is the need to find additional savings for next year on top of those that have already been agreed, including cuts to the supporting people budget and the city’s parks and green spaces.

The deputy leader continues to highlight that Birmingham received the country’s biggest per dwelling cut to core spending power, whereas the leader dismisses the measure of core spending power as “jiggery pokery” whenever it is pointed out that spending power will increase after 2017/2018, or that, despite this cut, Birmingham has the third highest core spending power per dwelling outside London, and the highest of any core city.

The deputy leader continues to use comparisons with counties such as Rutland to argue why Birmingham is being treated unfairly, but when it is pointed out that cities with much more in common with Birmingham, such as Manchester and Newcastle, are delivering balanced budgets he talks about how “unique” Birmingham is and that comparisons are unfair.

Most worryingly, rather than accept responsibility for the faulty and naïve assumptions that have led to this position, the administration continues to insist that the 2016/17 overspend is purely a natural result of the increasingly difficult to manage year-on-year cuts to local government spending.

Follow that logic through and they are effectively admitting that they cannot deliver a balanced budget next year or in future years either.

If Labour do not think they can deliver within the means at their disposal and the means they stated they could deliver in, perhaps it is time they stood aside? After all, Birmingham deserves proper leadership and responsible governance.

Councillor Robert Alden, Leader Conservative Group,

Birmingham City Council