The tectonic plates are shifting under Birmingham City Council’s leadership, to borrow John Prescott’s memorable phrase, but the result is likely to be more of a slight tremor than a cataclysmic earthquake.

A mini reshuffle of the middle ranks following last month’s local elections brought about some interesting changes on the Conservative side of the Tory-Lib Dem coalition that has been running Birmingham since 2004, although talk of promoting young hopefuls is somewhat wide of the mark.

Stockland Green Tory councillor Matt Bennett, who becomes executive member for children’s social care, is 35 which may rate as young in Birmingham Conservative circles but is actually knocking on the door of middle age in reality.

It is interesting to note that the beneficiaries of this reshuffle have in the past privately questioned the style of Tory council leader Mike Whitby.

Coun Bennett was part of a gang of rebellious backbenchers that forced Whitby to scrap his “socialist” plan to form a municipal bank.

Another member of this clique, Coun Phil Parkin, became deputy Tory group leader this time last year, but surprisingly threw the towel in last month on account of “pressure at work”.

Strangely, in this reshuffle, Coun Parkin has been appointed chairman of the leisure, sport and culture scrutiny committee, a job that you might think is just as time consuming as being deputy leader.

His resignation as Whitby’s deputy left the door open for the surprising appointment of Erdington councillor Robert Alden as deputy leader of the Conservative group.

Alden, at 28, is regarded by his colleagues as incredibly young and wears a shaggy beard plus skateboarder-type clothes which clearly marks him out as edgy, down with the youth and quite possibly dangerously radical.

Young Alden probably owes his appointment to his genius as a campaigner. He took Erdington from Labour and has worked miracles to turn around Tory fortunes in that constituency.

Actually, the Alden magic relies on little more than relentlessly pushing leaflets through doors and pursuing community issues in an attempt to promote Conservative candidates – something that some of his colleagues were too lazy to do and lost their seats as a result.

Coun Whitby is talking about promoting more youngish members of his group in an attempt to generate fresh ideas and overcome this year’s disastrous local election results which saw the Tory group lose six and the Liberal Democrats seven seats.

But it is surely too late for the coalition which seems certain to be swept out of power by Labour off the back of a national swing, whether at next year’s elections or in May 2013 at the first mayoral election.

The council leader may come to regret his reluctance to reshuffle the cabinet. Six of the 10 members, including Whitby and his Lib Dem deputy Paul Tilsley, have served continuously since June 2004.

The all-important portfolios of social services, schools, housing and human resources have remained in the hands of Sue Anderson, Les Lawrence, John Lines and Alan Rudge respectively and while there is something to be said for consistency there is also the danger of stifling new ideas and fresh enthusiasm if the same people remain in the same jobs for a long time.

Fresh faces have largely been the result of group elections on the Lib Dem side, although Coun Whitby was persuaded to find a cabinet position for his arch rival Randal Brew after Brew’s abortive attempt to challenge for the Tory group and council leadership.

You might conclude that all of the few changes that have taken place are the result of Coun Whitby buying off his enemies to avoid a further leadership bid.

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The Information Commissioner is monitoring the length of time it takes Birmingham City Council to respond to Freedom of Information requests following complaints about unacceptable delays in dealing with enquiries.

Of course, the council is always careful to act promptly when fielding Freedom of Information Act requests from important people.

So when Erdington Labour MP Jack Dromey asked about the council’s legal costs in respect of the recent judicial review into a £53 million social care cuts package he received an answer within the statutory deadline laid down under the Act. Not just any old answer from some anonymous bean counter, either.

The reply came directly from council chief executive Stephen Hughes and was addressed rather chummily to "Dear Jack".

However, the Commissioner might like to consider whether the council may not have been a little economic with the truth when framing its response.

Mr Dromey asked for a breakdown of “the total amount of money” spent by the council in defending the judicial review including the “ongoing costs of any legal advice that the council is incurring with regard to this legal action”.

Mr Hughes replied: “The only information available to us at this time is that the indicative costs to date are £250,000.”

The reply outlined exactly what Mr Dromey had suspected. A “grotesque” waste of public money, he stormed.

But further inquiries by Iron Angle revealed that £250,000 was solely an estimate of the council’s own legal fees.

And since costs were awarded against the council, it also has to pay the legal fees incurred by the other side which are unlikely to be less than £250,000.

So an FOI reply which indicated a quarter of a million pounds bill should more accurately have estimated half a million pounds.

Asked to explain this, a hapless council press officer mumbled something about a “badly worded letter”.

Whether the Commissioner will see it like that remains to be seen.