Just £2.5m out of £115m fund spent on Birmingham back-to-work projects
Only a tiny fraction of a £115 million fund set up to reduce unemployment in the poorest parts of Birmingham has been spent during the worst recession since the 1930s.
The Birmingham Post can reveal that the Be Birmingham city strategic partnership – chief executives from key public and private sector organisations led by the city council – managed to spend only £2.5 million of the Working Neighbourhoods Fund on worklessness projects in the 18 months between April 2008 and September this year.
And £14 million from the WNF has been diverted by the Be Birmingham board to bail out the council’s overspending social services department – raising questions over the legality of the decision.
Although government rules state that the Working Neighbourhoods Fund should be used to develop “concentrated approaches to getting people in the most deprived areas of England back to work”, Be Birmingham also decided to spend almost £10 million on a variety of initiatives including addressing climate change, reducing obesity, getting rid of graffiti and promoting cultural festivals.
Out of the total WNF allocation for Birmingham of £115 million, only £30 million had been spent by the end of last month – and less than 10 per cent of that was directed towards schemes to fight unemployment.
Local Government Minister John Healey will be asked to order an investigation by Perry Barr MP Khalid Mahmood, whose consituency has wards where unemployment approaches 30 per cent.
Mr Mahmood (Lab) described Be Birmingham’s handling of WNF as “breathtaking incompetence”.
He added: “In the current climate where Birmingham has the highest unemployment rate of any major English city, this is an absolute disgrace.
