Iron Angle: Birmingham's do-it-yourself plan to deal with cuts
There’s a certain amount of evangelical fervour behind the enthusiasm with which Birmingham City Council is delivering the Government’s cuts agenda.
Far from shaking their heads in sorrow and raging against the end of local government as we know it, the council’s leadership appears quite upbeat about the “opportunities” arising from slashing spending by £308 million over the next four years
When I say the leadership, I am not referring solely to the elected politicians in the city’s ruling Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. The influence and pre-eminence of chief executive Stephen Hughes is there for all to see.
It was Mr Hughes – he of ‘let’s roll back public services to the way they were in 1910’ fame – who fronted a press briefing setting out plans to axe some 10,000 council jobs and hand over most of social services to the voluntary sector.
Coun Randal Brew, the cabinet finance member, was there too and said he thought the dismantling of council-run services was a good thing because it would “give people the opportunity to help themselves”. But Mr Hughes was clearly in charge.
No sign of Tory council leader Mike Whitby, who is on annual leave, but he wouldn’t have attended in any case since his public appearances tend to be restricted to “good news” occasions.
Even Whitby might have been chancing his arm to enthuse about the global city with a local heart at a briefing that revealed the coalition’s intention to cut the non-schools workforce by 37 per cent.
He did, however, send along both of his youthful assistants, the Andrews Sisters, to underline the serious nature of the cuts proposals and probably to report back on Mr Hughes’s performance.
It is being said by the politicians that some of the more radical ideas discussed by the chief executive and other officers – selling the council house stock and privatising refuse collection – have been kicked into touch. Perhaps so, but the package that remains could hardly be described as lukewarm.
Taken together, the cuts proposals amount to a dress rehearsal for the Government’s Big Society vision. One of the furthest-reaching proposals would see council-funded social services withdrawn from all but adults needing “critical care”.
A formal definition of “critical” is awaited, but an off the cuff explanation from Mr Hughes suggests this refers to people who are so severely disabled that they can do little or nothing for themselves.
Everyone else, hundreds if not thousands of people, seeking social care will be signposted (dreaded local government word) to the private and voluntary sectors where they may or may not be able to get help at a price they can afford.
The chief executive looked shocked and then quite cross when I asked him whether the proposals might be interpreted in some quarters as akin to “the council washing its hands of the most vulnerable people”.
