![\"Birmingham](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/0_JS323277296-1.jpg\")
Birmingham City Council House in Victoria Square(Image: Nick Wilkinson\/Birmingham Live)<\/p>\nA commissioner at Birmingham City Council recently warned the local authority faces a “long, hard road”Birmingham City Council House in Victoria Square(Image: Nick Wilkinson\/Birmingham Live)<\/p>\n
Crisis-hit Birmingham City Council has approached a \u201ccritical turning point\u201d as it pushes ahead with its \u201clong road\u201d to recovery.<\/p>\n
The Labour<\/a>-run council passed through another painful budget earlier this year, which included a huge raft of ‘savings’ and cuts to services, as well as a council tax hike for a second successive year.<\/p>\n The consequences of the authority\u2019s financial turmoil have been far-reaching, impacting bin collections, libraries, culture, street lighting, parks, adult social care day centres, pest control charges for rats and much more.<\/p>\n READ MORE: <\/strong>Birmingham\u2019s new Lord Mayor elected as ceremony interrupted by bin strike protesters<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n The council\u2019s corporate plan, set to be considered at next week\u2019s cabinet meeting, sets out the priorities for the next three years and provides a look at how it intends to overcome the issues which have plagued the authority.<\/p>\n But there are warnings the recovery journey will be a long one, with a government-appointed commissioner recently saying it will take years of improvements.<\/p>\n The corporate plan acknowledged that the council faced \u201csignificant challenges\u201d that led to government intervention in 2023, with concerns being raised over equal pay liabilities, the failed Oracle implementation and \u201cbudget and financial management instability\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe council responded with its first Improvement and Recovery Plan (IRP), which provided an outline roadmap for stabilisation and change,\u201d it continued.<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough there is still a long way to go, delivery of IRP programmes over the last year has moved the council forward in its improvement and recovery journey.”<\/p>\n The corporate plan went on to say that managing director Joanne Roney CBE, the council\u2019s leadership, officers and commissioners have been working closely together to improve the functioning of the organisation.<\/p>\n \u201cSince April 2024, BCC has made substantial progress in addressing its most critical issues,\u201d it went on to say. \u201cThe Brindley Programme has stabilised the re-implementation of the Oracle ERP system and is on track to go live in April 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cA framework settlement agreement has been reached on equal pay and a balanced budget was set for 24\/25 and 25\/26 with c.\u00a3150m of savings delivered in 24\/25.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe council is beginning to move beyond a shorter-term focus on stabilisation and crisis management towards longer-term and sustainable improvement and transformation,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n The plan, therefore, said that Birmingham City Council<\/a> is now at a \u201ccritical turning point\u201d.<\/p>\n READ MORE: <\/strong>Fury over proposed charges at key Birmingham parks as MP says users are \u2018paying the price’<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cMany of the immediate challenges have been addressed and successes should be celebrated,\u201d it said. \u201cHowever, the work is not yet complete.<\/p>\n \u201cThis plan sets out a clear pathway for delivering lasting improvement and transformation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018A long, hard road\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Max Caller, a government-appointed commissioner sent in to oversee the council\u2019s recovery, was asked last month when Brummies would notice things improving in their day-to-day lives.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been 18 months since this all began and I don\u2019t see any improvement for our residents,\u201d Conservative<\/a> councillor Deirdre Alden ( Edgbaston<\/a> ) said at a finance scrutiny meeting.<\/p>\n Mr Caller responded: \u201cIt\u2019s a long, hard road. This council will need to be on its improvement journey for years after commissioners have gone.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd bit by bit, you\u2019ll be able to see things get better.\u201d<\/p>\n But he continued: \u201cWhen the waste strike is over and the council has implemented a reformed refuse collection, which minimises the number of missed collections, people will not be ringing up to congratulate you.<\/p>\n \u201cI can promise you – that never, ever happens. But you will have a service that you can measure.<\/p>\n \u201cI have nothing to offer to a resident who says \u2018it\u2019s bad now and you\u2019ve been at this two years\u2019 – this is true and you may not see it until even a year after the election in some parts of the organisation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSorry, I can\u2019t give you a magic wand,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Providing insight on the city council\u2019s financial position, external auditors recently highlighted several issues including the equal pay debacle, inadequate budget setting, poor service management, demand led pressures and the disastrous implementation of a new IT system.<\/p>\n Labour politicians have also pointed to the impact of funding cuts over the past decade or so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A commissioner at Birmingham City Council recently warned the local authority faces a “long, hard road”Birmingham City Council…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,7831,984,748,527,393,4884,528,285,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-135984","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-birmingham-bin-strike","10":"tag-birmingham-city-council","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-conservative-party","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-labour-party","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114579961572048630","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Joanne](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/6_Joanne_Roney_Chief_Executive_Manchester_City_Council.jpg\")
Joanne Roney<\/p>\n![\"Commissioner](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2_JS313587488.jpg\")
Commissioner Max Caller(Image: Darren Quinton\/Birmingham Live)<\/p>\n