Birmingham City Council budget confirms £148m cuts
Council tax will rise by 7.49% in 2025/26
Last updated 6th Feb 2025
Birmingham City Council has today (6 February) published its budget, confirming £148m of cuts and a council tax rise of 7.49% from April.
Adult social care and children's services face the brunt of the cuts, and reductions to bin collections have also been finalised, savings £4.5m.
The authority made £149m of the £300m planned savings last year - with the 2025/26 budget making up the remaining savings.
Birmingham City Council declared itself effectively bankrupt in October 2023 as it struggled to deal with equal pay claims originally estimated to total £750m.
Government-appointed commissioners were brought in, with the city already seeing huge cuts to services since and a council tax rise of 10% for the 2024-25 financial year.
Leader of the Council, John Cotton, said the authority's looking to minimise the impact of further tax rises on the most vulnerable: "Out of the 466,000 households, a quarter of those will get some support from the council tax scheme and 75,000 - those with the least in the city - are exempt from council tax altogether.
"What we're also doing with this budget is looking at how we use this as a platform to deliver better basic services for the city, and ensure that this council continues its transformation journey to deliver for the people of Birmingham."
Commissioners overseeing Birmingham City Council have also instructed the authority to increase its sale of assets, to raise around a £1billion by the end of 2026.
The budget is expected to be signed off at a full Cabinet meeting later this month.