Birmingham City Council is today set to approve its tax-rising, cuts-ridden budget as the local authority attempts to balance their finances after declaring bankruptcy.
The budget plans to cut more than £200million over the next two years, whilst increasing council tax 21 per cent and selling off £1.25billion worth of assets.
Some of the cuts include:
- £51.5million cut from Children's, Young People and Families budgets
- No more council funding for community centres
- Cuts to City Operations totalling £39million for 2024-25
- Bin collections to become fortnightly from 2025-26
- Adult social care to be cut by £23.7million
A current assessment of council employees also means up to 600 council jobs may be declared redundant in the coming months.
For Europe’s youngest city, however, the coming cuts to youth services will sting for campaigners.
Sabrina Dennis is the CEO of First Class Foundation, a charity that works with young people in Birmingham. She told GB News she doesn’t know what’s “on the other side” of these cutbacks.
Birmingham City Council is set to unveil its new budget todayPA/CREATIVE COMMONSShe said: “My concerns are the safe spaces, the genuine lack already of safe spaces for young people.
“I think for that to all of a sudden disappear at a time when, especially in Birmingham, we're seeing so much, you know, poverty, cost of living, violence, youth violence. It's kind of scary.
“My concern is I don't actually know what it looks like on the other side.”
Other people in the city worry about the maintenance of public spaces. Along with fortnightly bin collections from 2025, streetlights will be dimmed in order to make a saving of £900,000.
Spending on highway maintenance will be reduced by £12million.
John Gilmore has been campaigning for the council to better maintain the city’s cemeteries and worries they’ll fall into disrepair.
He said: “What really concerns me is if they can’t maintain the cemeteries as we all believe they should be, how are they going to maintain them in the future?
“I find it really painful that when you come to these places you just want them to look tidy, cared for and respectful and so many just do not look like that.
“There are friends groups for cemeteries but they can’t do big things like the council should be doing which is things like maintaining potholes and replacing bins.”
John added: “I’ve had to literally beg the council for over a year to do things, which is what I would call basic general maintenance of a cemetery, and that can't go on.”
For the residents in Birmingham, the future of the city looks uncertain and on the high street, there’s anger at the rise in council tax and budget plans.
One resident told GB News: “I just do not see why the existing council taxpayers should be asked to pay to pick up the tab for something that is not their fault.
Another said: “Disgraceful, really, isn't it If you listen to it? All the work they've done on Birmingham, and they still haven't finished off half the projects.”
One lady said: “I'd certainly be worried about raising council tax. I'd be less worried if I could see a proper plan of how it's going to be spent, and what we're going to get as a benefit from that, rather than it just bailing out the council.”
The local authority’s financial trouble is mainly due to equal pay liability claims which are now reported to have reached £867million. Elsewhere, the council has gone more than £100million over budget on the implementation of a new IT system.
Cllr Robert Alden (Conservative), Leader of the Opposition, said: "This is an important budget, it's a budget that shows just how badly Birmingham Labour have made a mess of the Council's finances and how they haven't got a real plan to fix their mess."
"Instead all Birmingham Labour have to offer is a double whammy of higher taxes and fewer services.
"Perhaps residents watching this budget debate for the last 20 minutes will have concluded that the Leader and his cabinet live in a fantasy land.
"A golden decade promised by Labour, destroyed by a decade of Birmingham Labour rule.
"Warning after warning, year after year. Every year since 2017 there have been warnings that the council had to resolve equal pay issues. Every year since 2017 Birmingham Labour have ignored those warnings.
"They are not being honest with Brummies, not honest about the causes of their financial crisis nor about their lack of plan to fix it."
Speaking after the announcement of the budget, Leader of Birmingham City Council, John Cotton, said: “I want to apologise unreservedly for both the significant spending restrictions and this year's substantial council tax increase.
“We have no alternative than to face these challenges head on, and we will do whatever is necessary to put the council back on a sound financial footing.”