{"id":157897,"date":"2025-06-04T16:08:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T16:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/157897\/"},"modified":"2025-06-04T16:08:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T16:08:11","slug":"birmingham-council-defends-ambitious-vision-for-city-amid-devoid-of-reality-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/157897\/","title":{"rendered":"Birmingham Council defends \u2018ambitious\u2019 vision for city amid \u2018devoid of reality\u2019 criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Birmingham City Council has set out its priorities over the next three years in a bid to make Brum as ‘greener and healthier’ place\"BirminghamBirmingham Council leader John Cotton during the budget meeting in 2024(Image: Nick Wilkinson\/Birmingham Live)<\/p>\n

Birmingham Council has defended an \u201cambitious\u201d plan for the city\u2019s future despite the vision being slammed as \u201cdevoid of reality\u201d.<\/p>\n

The local authority\u2019s corporate plan sets out the priorities for Birmingham<\/a> over the next three years and how it intends to overcome the issues which have recently plagued the council.<\/p>\n

In a bid to make the city fairer, greener and healthier, the Labour<\/a>-run council\u2019s plan explores how it can tackle critical challenges such as housing need, health inequalities, unemployment and child poverty.<\/p>\n

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But the council\u2019s vision came under fire during a cabinet meeting yesterday, June 3, with Conservative<\/a> group leader Robert Alden pointing to its aspiration of improving street cleaning and waste services.<\/p>\n

He went on to say the city’s bins service was currently not operating properly as the ongoing bins strike continues to take its toll.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis plan is devoid of the reality of the situation the council finds itself in,” he argued. “That\u2019s a fundamental problem as to why it will fail.<\/p>\n

\u201cResidents expect the city to balance the books and to clean the streets – this corporate plan doesn\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n

Coun Alden added: \u201cA lot of officer time and resources have been spent producing yet more colourful, lovely dossiers to hand out and claim that the future will be different.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RobertRobert Alden, leader of the Conservatives at Birmingham City Council(Image: Nick Wilkinson\/Birmingham Live)<\/p>\n

Acknowledging the financial turmoil which has plagued the authority, council leader John Cotton said the Labour administration had made significant progress in \u201cfixing the foundations\u201d.<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cFixing those foundations is essential if we\u2019re going to deliver on ambitions for this city – and we should make no apology for being ambitious for Birmingham and its people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is exactly what this corporate plan is about – it\u2019s about looking forward to the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coun Cotton went on to say the plan sets out the council\u2019s \u201chigh level ambitions\u201d and \u201cmajor targets\u201d for the city over the next few years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s also underpinned by a lot of detailed policy and strategy that\u2019s come before this cabinet previously,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: <\/strong>One in four Birmingham children in year six are obese as city\u2019s health issues laid bare<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important not to just look at one document – we need to look at this being the guiding document that governs all the other work that this council is undertaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deputy leader Coun Sharon Thompson added: \u201cWe have to be ambitious for the residents of Birmingham – that is we are committed to doing whilst also fixing some of the issues which opposition [councillors] have highlighted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world is changing, innovation is coming upon us and we cannot let Birmingham be left behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that having a Labour government working with the council would \u201cmake a difference\u201d when it came to tackling some of the city\u2019s most pressing issues compared to the previous 13 years.<\/p>\n

Birmingham City Council<\/a> also has plans to transform its waste collection service in a bid to boost the efficiency and reliability of bin collections.<\/p>\n

But the bins strike dispute between itself and Unite the union remains unresolved, with striking workers raising concerns about pay while the council\u2019s leadership has repeatedly insisted that a “fair and reasonable” offer has been made.<\/p>\n

The all-out citywide strike has been running since March and has attracted unwanted headlines from across the world, with tales of \u2018cat-sized rats\u2019 and rubbish mountains making headlines.<\/p>\n

\u2018Long way to go\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the council\u2019s financial woes which led to unprecedented cuts to local services, the corporate plan acknowledged that it faced \u201csignificant challenges\u201d that led to government intervention in 2023.<\/p>\n

Concerns were 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

\"DemonstratorsDemonstrators outside Birmingham Council House in 2024 over the planned cuts to budgets.(Image: Birmingham Live)<\/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 is now at a \u201ccritical turning point\u201d.<\/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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Birmingham City Council has set out its priorities over the next three years in a bid to make…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157898,"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-157897","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\/114625963955763780","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157897","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=157897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}