Birmingham City Council

[Pontificator]

All of that without a mention of "single status" that everyone agreed to without consideration of the consequences

[CarlosCorbewrong]

It's all diversity coordinators and cycle lanes, these days.

[rsbaggy2]

Half of the budgetary hole is due to legacy budgetary mismanagement from when the council was Tory/Lib Dem run.

This isn't a "party political" issue.

what i understand that they kept kicking the can down the road on the equal pay claims

And who started that can-kicking? Oh yes, the Tory/Lib Dem executive that created the problem in the first place?

I'm not a fan of Labour, especially the Birmingham Party, but the fact is on this they've done pretty much all they can to manage it. They've cut liabilities, they've sold assets to cover for cash flow issues, they tried to streamline costs with a new IT system (that Oracle fucked up) to reduce payment liabilities.

That assertion is incorrect. The Equal Pay issue was already live under Albert Bore when I worked there. It is true to say that (alleged) wifebeater Bore, the absolute prat Whitby and the motley crew of train drivers, driving instructors etc who've "led" the Council have essentially driven it into the ground.

The only Leader to come out with any credit is John Clancy, and his party hated him so much they soon got rid of him.

I had a few dealings with Whitby years ago in a work capacity. A bully and a complete c***. Genuinely vile man.

Baron Whitby if you don't mind. Loathsome creature and indeed. a complete coont.

[Derek Hardballs]

I’m pretty sure this is political? Surprised at some for commenting given their antipathy to anything resembling politics on the main board,

[Spandaubaggie]

I used to have to attend council meetings galore for many a council in my journalism days. Fact is most councillors are utterly useless- they are not equipped with the skills to handle power.
To add to this most public sector organisations are chaotic and carry heaps of dead wood with useless processes and many people who would never get a job in the real world.
Feel sorry for the decent folks ground down by such systems and cultures.
Be interesting to see what comes of this mess.

[sickParrot]

Ozzy the Bull is on eBay ffs.

[SausEggBaton]

This is moving to the politics board.

[Protheroe]

But it's not just the internals of the LA, you need to look at the externals.

BCC were not the only council in the West Midlands to be affected by equal pay claims, Warwickshire CC and Coventry CC were as well at around the same time. Yet both Warwickshire CC and Coventry CC were proactive (for once) and nipped it in the bud to prevent legal action. BCC did not (as shown by stupidly trying to pay some people under the table), the Tory/LD admin fucked up and exacerbated the issues tremendously. In all three cases it was the exact same unions with the exact same reps, yet only BCC came out with a huge budgetary liability.

Laying the blame at the foot of the coalition of chaos is bonkers. This had been going on for years before that aberration. Yes, they compounded issues - but that's largely because the same people were advising them legally that had advised Bore, and the union pressures were still there. Cov, Warks & Solihull dealt well with Equal Pay, but they're all tiny compared with the Brummie behemoth and all the baggage that went with it/

[Everything Zin]

Labour run council runs out of other people’s money shock.
But rather than party politics, this speaks to the utter incompetence of people running the public sector and yet there are people on here who would gladly hand more of the UK economy to politicians.

[Derek Hardballs]

Labour run council runs out of other people’s money shock.
But rather than party politics, this speaks to the utter incompetence of people running the public sector and yet there are people on here who would gladly hand more of the UK economy to politicians.

Because no private companies go bust. 
How many councils have gone bust / got into financial difficulty in the last 13yrs compared to the previous? 

Still you keep telling yourself private good, public bad.