To think Councils going bust are not all at fault?

[Turmerictolly]

Another council (Birmingham) declaring bankruptcy/severe financial difficulties. Yes, there has been some financial mismanagement but decades of austerity and squeeze from a Tory government haven't helped. I have connections to Birmingham and feel sorry for the sorry state it's in - the streets are filthy and depressing in a lot of areas.

Birmingham council is just like all other public bodies. Badly run, profligate with tax payers money and full of useless civil servants. Like up thread said, if you started to make a list of all the things this council has wasted funds on, that list would be endless. Clearly running pride events is more important than balancing the books. They think it’s an essential service.

It is not, all councils had this issue, Birmingham just has a huge bill.

The Tories have cut funds to the council by a billion.

I think its pretty disingenuous of the government to say councils need to source their own income streams, but then complain when it all goes wrong, councils are specialists at delivering social care - not revenue generating schemes.

That's not the case here though, the equal pay claim should have been settled a decade ago and the strategy of kicking the can down the road has failed spectacularly, heads should roll for that.

The it project, I have a degree of sympathy for, trying to unify all the disperate systems was going to be a tall order, and plenty of companies have beeen burnt by large scale oracle it projects (where only the board really knows the cost/failure/under delivery) but for it to be at such a massive cost, again who was accountable for that?

Local govt workers are not civil servants. If you are going to slag off an entire workforce at least bother to know who you are talking about.

Does anyone know what counts as non-statutory services?

So did everyone, it was the way the world was.

Good it got corrected but current councillors are not to blame for old workplace norms.

Councils have some of the most unproductive workforces of any sector. High absence rates, huge pensions, poor management, no accountability, massive overspending on projects.

Yes it is. They didn't have to underpay their staff

This is nonsense. The wages paid are low compared to private sector, the workload now high.

Councils provide vital services.

Well no, of course they didn't have to, but it was a norm to pay women less.

That's why the legal changes were brought in - to correct the widespread issue.

The councillors in charge today are not to.blame for things that happened in the past, obviously.

There are many others close to the edge already...

https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/news/stoke-on-trent-news/city-council-issues-bankruptcy-warning-8725713

So they declare bankruptcy to get out of paying. They're no longer liable.

What even happens when a council goes bankrupt?? No bin collections, no parking services etc?

Agree OP, central government funding is cut and cut and cut, meanwhile responsbilities to the local people keep growing and expectations grow as well

People vote for this and then complain

No doubt people will be along soon to talk about back room waste, bloated councils and pay

And why do you think councils started making these kind of risky investments? Because the Tories slashed their budgets and told them they needed to be more "commercial". They tried to invest their assets to generate commercial returns to plug the budget gaps created by the Tories, and the first councils that started doing this got applauded for it and everyone was encouraged to join in. Now the same government that created this mess is blaming councils for it.

Don't get me wrong, there's been some seriously bad decision making in all of the councils that have gone bust so far - but of course there has! These are organisations set up to deliver social care and road maintenance and waste collections and school places. They should never have been encouraged to try to be "commercial"; it was miles outside of the expertise of both the officers and the politicians. Yet another mess of the Tories making.

Education and social care are statutory along with things like waste collection - although this doesn't have to be weekly.
Things like grass cutting, libraries and leisure centres are not statutory, or probably school crossing patrol staff.
Not sure about street lighting and potholes.

So many people seem to want roads repaired, bins emptied, noisy neighbours dealt with etc etc - but want it for free.

Good services need sustainable funding.

Rishi has been filmed boasting about diverting funding to his conservative council buddies at the expense of poorer less influential councils. This is another ConParty incompetent disas

Lots of things that people think are statutory are not, school transport in certain circumstances for example is not statutory but is often provided, when this is cut more and more people will start to complain

People expect councils to be run like businesses, we have had decades of this narrative, when they are and they make investments that dont pay off, they get criticised for being swindled or 'too cocky', or investing in vanity projects.

GMBs statement

https://www.gmb.org.uk/news/gmb-responds-to-birmingham-city-council-issuing-a-section-114-notice

Maybe it's a Birmingham 'cultural' thing that's allowed women to be underpaid for so long. I binned a Brum-based client after he described Handsworth as very "white" and so he thought the area "unsafe".

WTAF - Handsworth? - one of the most multicultural areas in Europe, with a riot or 2 under it's belt as well as it's own chart-busting music decades ago. Too white - if Handsworth is too white and white = unsafe then I truly give up and will be moving to Albania as soon as I can, and wouldn't say no to a side trip to some Rwandan apartments before I go.

The Binned One also had a really shit attitude to his wife and I did tell him how pissed off I was about that, and he treated me like a lesser being but then I knew I was the only White UK Woman he had any dealings with.

So Birmingham CC will have to borrow some money and add the repayments to their Council Tax Bills as a 'Women's Equality' levy, not much more they can do really.

100% agree with pay parity and backdating pay shortfall for women but when these legal changes were made (nationally I presume) funds should have been available from Central Govt to plug the gap. The bill would not then have escalated to huge proportions.

Agree with pp that the Govt encouraged Councils to act like private businesses. Without the commercial expertise this was always going to lead to disaster. I honestly wonder what will happen now - Birmingham is the biggest local authority in the Uk and services have already been cut.

It’s really not. Council staff are often overpaid for what they do and have very expensive pensions. I’ve worked in both public and private sector and the stereotypes of the public sector being incredibly inefficient and unproductive are pretty accurate imo.

My local authority spent £1.3m on a road scheme of about 300 yards.so bad it was raised in parliament. Has bought a decrepit pier and plans to renovate it. Is committed to buying a shopping centre when it was clear that retail is thermally ill.

Oh and councillors can claim expenses for going from one meeting to another....In the same building

Councils / LAs are mostly run by incompetents who would have been out in their arse many years ago in the private sector.

Now the ones that aren't bankrupt are spending ££££££££ on private sector 'specialists' or 'delivery associates to go in and sort the mess out. I'm looking at you LUF.

A huge amount of LAs aren't far behind, many would be horrified by the state of many LAs books. BCP are another on the edge thanks to some dodgy tory schemes.