New council plan to get Birmingham back on its feet
The 86-page 'Improvement and Recovery Plan' is set to be signed off by cabinet today.
A new action plan to get Birmingham City Council back on its feet is set to be approved at a cabinet meeting today (4 April).
The 86-page 'Improvement and Recovery Plan' (IRP) sets out a vision of the authority's future, as a “smaller and leaner” organisation.
It comes after the council signed off millions of pounds of cuts to local services last month, as well as a 10 per cent rise in council tax.
Birmingham City Council effectively declared bankruptcy last year, issuing a section 114 notice in September – an admission it was seriously struggling with its finances.
Its ‘Improvement and Recovery Plan' says it is focused on “ensuring that the organisation is financially sustainable, well-run, and consequently delivers good quality services.”
“For too long the council has not met the standards that this great city expects,” it continued.
“It is clear that, in order to improve, the council requires a fundamental reset in the way that it thinks, feels and acts.
“This reset goes beyond dealing with immediate challenges and will look to build an organisation that is fit for the future.”
Offering a glimpse of what the council could therefore look like in the future, the plan continued: “The IRP will support and enable a future council that looks, feels and operates differently to now.
“It will be smaller, leaner, and more focused on value for money.
“It will operate as one council which puts our citizens, communities, and partners first.”
This could mean a more targeted range of services, leaner organisational structures and “consolidating and centralising” council activities.
Birmingham’s lead Government commissioner, sent in to oversee the city council’s path to recovery, also recently offered hope that the authority could be ‘great again’.
At a committee meeting last month, Max Caller appeared optimistic that BCC could turn things around in the future but added that it needs to “rein back its ambitions”.
“I think council leader John Cotton was absolutely right at the budget meeting to actually focus on getting the basics right, doing the details, making sure the services you are going to deliver are delivered consistently across the piece,” he said.
“That means we’re going to have to work very hard together to ensure you can keep on funding the regeneration of this city it absolutely needs”.