Mindblowing - apparently equal pay is the reason Birmingham City Council is bankrupt....

[GingerIsBest]

this article today just blows my mind.

Ladies - because you asked for fair pay, everyone else is suffering.

To be fair, the article itself is more balanced than the headline but FFS.....

The government ceasing to funbd councils properly is to blame, not the fact women are finally getting equal pay.

Stupid clickbait headline from the Times.

I heard that on radio headlines yesterday and thought the same.

Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 this afternoon discussing this - have a listen from 4.07 to 19.00 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001pyk6?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile
They're not the only council in trouble... Thurrock, Slough, Woking and many more.

Similar in Glasgow, I'm sick of hearing them talk about the fair pay issue as the cause of it all.

Well it’s good to know that even council underfunding is women’s fault somehow.

I hadn't seen it on other news outlets. I had hoped it was just The Times with this ridiculous angle. I'm still sort of gobsmacked by the whole thing.

Anybody who's ever seen how local government works knows that their number one priority is always lining their own pockets, paying themselves huge amounts of money (including massive pay-offs for made-up HR issues like bullying that didn't happen). I've been there and I've seen it.

Lazy, useless, entitled arseholes who couldn't effectively run a bath never mind a council. All just treading water for the benefits and the public sector pension.

They will of course be bailed out with yet more public funds from the taxpayer's purse.

Women's fault, is it, aye?

With my tin foil hat on, this looks like part of a wider pattern of attacks on equality legislation.

It needs reframing. Their failure to address fair pay and historical exploitation is to blame. Basing a business model on inequality and then having it fall on its arse because they aren't allowed to exploit women any more isn't anyone else's fault except for their own.

It's shocking that the inequity was so severe and entrenched that correcting it bankrupted them!

But councils do seem incredibly inefficient in my experience.

I've got a feeling the 13-year-long cuts to funding to Councils since 2010, if calculated, would more than cover the equal pay bill plus a lot more besides had they not been imposed.

The Tories (and Lib Dem coalition partners) came to power in 2010 and immediately started imposing 'Austerity' on Local Authorities (Councils). One of the first things they did was cancel Building Schools for the Future - anyone remember that? - that Councils had already invested in very heavily, and start to impose major funding cuts. It affected my DC's schools, and I remember the meetings of that June/July 2010 very well. My DD's school has only this year completed the building work that should have happened a decade ago - funnily enough, when the equal pay judgement was being delivered.

When the Government started systematically cutting the central grants it gave to Councils, year on year, that's when and how the rot set in. (The money raised from Council Tax is a piss in the ocean compared to central Government funding.) Blame bloody Cameron, Osborne and Gove; not women.

I wouldn't discount that.

Expanding the definition of protected characteristics to include anyone who feels they ought to be entitled to protections is effectively shredding the EA

I was working for BCC when this started, the massive costs are mainly due to the council not accepting the claims but fighting the women via the courts. The bill is the women’s costs, BCC costs as well as the backpay. The sheer arrogant attitude of council at the time is what compelled so many women to get involved. Also, part of the problem is the vast scale of BCC. It’s the UK’s largest LA and has been dysfunctional for decades, with a revolving door of corrupt, white middle aged men in the leadership roles. They never seemed to have a problem in paying them off tho…. I have actually been in a meeting where two very senior leaders, suggested they 'Take it outside' FFS

I said at the time the women got the award that the council, if they had been savvy, should have paid the men the same as the women in their bands.

But tbh it is really a combination of under investment and mismanagement. The Commonwealth Games didn't help at all

I've worked in local government and have to say the above is true.

The latest was a small parcel of land being compulsorily purchased by the council, and sold to a council member's son for the same amount they paid (a pittance). Council member's son has now sold on to a large housing developer for triple he paid - all with planning permission assured despite it not going to the community for a consult.

Only two of the 100+ houses to be built with solar panels and heat pumps. No grey water systems. Nothing to make these houses more environmentally friendly, just a job lot of cheap gas boilers, cheaper window systems and the bare minimum insulation.

Disgusting.

All those bloody women. No wonder the country is in a mess.

For an accurate insight, (and an excellent watch), the brilliant drama series Our Friends In The North is currently available in BBC iPlayer (but not for much longer so you'll have to be quick).

It's a superb portrait of corruption, and more relevant today than ever. Corruption in local government, central government, police and politics, it's all there and the same as it ever was, and ever will be.

👏 👏 👏

@AmandaHoldensLips I work for a local authority and don't recognise that at all.

I see people who work bloody hard to make the lives of residents better. I work in Adult Social Care and its horrendous at the moment. The funding cuts mean we can't pay providers properly, and we haven't got enough staff to support services.

And the idea of massive pay and a gold plated pension is a joke.When I first qualified as a social worker the pay was OK- not great, but not too bad. And there was a final salary pension scheme.

However our pay has been eroded over the last 14 years, I now earn 25% less in real terms. Plus our pensions are "career average" which is a real blow to women like me who worked PT when my children were small until they were teenagers. Plus we now can't claim our pension until we reach state pension age whereas it used to be 65.

But yeah, you carry on tarring us all with the same brush.

@EmmaGrundyForPM I didn't mean the hard-working people like you. I meant the central management shit-show of local government / councils who I have seen first hand.

From my pov, I have never seen it framed as being the fault of women claiming equal pay. To me, the framing has consistently been that the mishandling of the situation by bcc caused the problem, as others have said above.

It’s always Blame the women. Perhaps the Govt should have paid these claims out of the money stolen from women, born in the fifties, contributions

I had no idea that paying women fairly could bankrupt a council. Though I feel like if you’re underpaying your women employees by £750 million pounds that’s very much a you problem, not a women problem…

One explanation I heard was that they were 'slow' to reclassify the women who had suffered the discrimination and forgot about the new starters in new jobs.
When that case came up they had to pay millions in a short space of time. That wrecked the cashflow planning.

IYSWIM