| LES RATCLIFFE Old rows, planted questions and little to see in chamber of horrors
because, as well as there being no local election this spring, the showpiece budget meeting is in a few weeks and everyone's eye is on that.
There was the usual dig about the council's faltering refuse collection service, particularly the poor record on recycling and in return an answer we had heard a million times before about the “improvement journey”.
Similarly old arguments swapping blame for the poor state of council finances were exchanged by the Labour leadership and Conservative and Lib Dem opposition.
Typifying this approach was cabinet member for housing Peter Griffiths, whose scripted answer to a planted question on the Government's new housing white paper was read with such a lack of conviction it was largely inaudible.
A rare highlight among all this was the news, via a planted question, that cabinet member for health Paulette Hamilton has opened a positive dialogue with a government minister over the social care funding crisis – arguably the biggest drain on the council finances and a public health disaster in the making.
Conservative councillor Peter Douglas Osborn is known for what, if you are being kind, can only be described as off-kilter questions so there were gasps when he stood up.
But even his offering was a straight and very reasonable request that the education department look at training more staff and pupils in the use of defibrillators, something the cabinet member agreed with on principle and was happy to look at.
Only the scandal of ‘hijabgate' – in which Labour cabinet members were found in dispute over a Catholic primary school's ban on the hijab – generated any sort of excitement.
The three questions were targeted at council leader John Clancy and cabinet member for schools Brigid Jones to highlight divisions in the Labour cabinet over the issue.
Cllr Clancy even said that Birmingham is a diverse city and he welcomes diverse opinions in his cabinet. And of course they refused to directly condemn Cllr Waseem Zaffar, the cabinet member for equalities, over the blunder.
It was his social media statement that a ban contravened the equalities act – which by all accounts it doesn't – that brought the whole issue into the public domain.
A trick was being missed because the questions were aimed at others rather than Cllr Zaffar, the chap at the centre of the row.
So, after being talked about for a bit, he took it upon himself to approach the Lord Mayor, council lawyer and chief executive to demand the chance to make a point of clarification.
Even then it was barely worth the wait and shed very little light on anything.
Rather like the rest of question time, then.
AMONG the planted questions to the Labour leadership was one which gave value-formoney chief Majid Mahmood a chance to show how they had cut the amount spent on consultants since the heady pre-austerity days of 2010 when the Tories and Lib Dems ran the council. He reeled off a list of figures showing that the city spent £19 million on outside consultants seven years ago, but only £4 million in 2015. A worthy effort to reduce costs.
Outside the meeting it was pointed out by opposition Conservative leader Robert Alden that the figures differed greatly from some he had been given in a recent request under the Freedom of Information Act.
In fact, he had been told no figures for 2010 were available and would be too expensive to seek out.
Might be time to complain to the Information Commissioner then.
This week’s session lacked any drama – it was as if someone had slipped some Valium in the council coffee machine