It may be convenient for Michael Gove’s appointed commissioner to blame Labour councillors for Birmingham’s budget crisis (Birmingham city council ignored bankruptcy warning signs, says expert, 12 November), but the £4bn funding crisis in wider local government sets the real context.
Birmingham has lost 11,000 staff and £1bn in government grant since 2011. This loss of capacity has damaged essential services and the council’s ability to manage.
From 2012, the newly elected Labour council successfully paid off a billion-pound equal-pay debt inherited from the previous Tory-Liberal Democrat administration. Labour also pulled the city out of a hugely expensive information technology scheme called Service Birmingham. The difference in 2023 is that the council has lost both corporate memory and crucial staff capacity. The cuts now demanded by Gove can only worsen this malaise.
Some services, such as licensing, are ringfenced via fee income; others are not and – given Tory austerity – require more, not less, investment to achieve essential minimums. After 10 years of drastic staff and service reductions in Birmingham, this latest dose of Tory austerity can only damage statutory services.
If the solution to this budget crisis is another devastating round of government-imposed cuts, then I’m Margaret Thatcher.
Cllr Phil Davis
Chair, licensing and public protection committee, Birmingham city council
• Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
