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As the government\u2019s long-time fixer of broken and bust councils, Max Caller would like to be known as the \u201cposter boy for best value\u201d. Unfortunately for him, he is less generously referred to across the world of local government as \u201cMax the Axe\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He won the moniker near the start of his five-decade career. In the mid-eighties, Caller was installed at Barnet council and tasked with, among other things, resolving a dispute set off by the council\u2019s plan to introduce wheeled bins. Caller fixed a \u201cdisastrous\u201d landfill contract, cut the costs of bin collection and resolved the dispute with the workers. His colleagues were thoroughly \u201cimpressed\u201d, and crafted him a celebratory badge of an axe. Resolving the dispute, Caller told me, was a \u201cproper negotiation\u201d. Key to that, he feels, was that the stirking workers from the GMB union \u201crespected\u201d his straightforwardness. He recounted, \u201cIt was clear that I was going to modernise the service. No one had had the steadfastness to actually make it quite clear that this was what the council was going to do \u2013 and the workforce were impressed with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caller\u2019s career in local government career was bookended by another dispute over refuse. \u201cHistory keeps repeating itself,\u201d Caller noted when we spoke a few weeks after he stepped down as lead commissioner of Birmingham City Council, to retire for the third time. Birmingham\u2019s bin strikes are now in their seventh month, and its picketing workforce has seen tons of rubbish line England\u2019s second city<\/a>. Caller, who had been tasked with leading \u00a3300m of cost savings following the council\u2019s bankruptcy in 2023, came to be seen as the villain of the strikes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sharon Graham, the doggedly worker-oriented general secretary of Unite, has waged a very public war with Caller and his team of commissioners. She has criticised their fees (\u201can eye-watering \u00a31,200 a day\u201d), accused them of \u201csabotaging\u201d negotiations and branded the council\u2019s service reforms as \u201cfire-and-rehire\u201d. When I asked him about the charges, Caller projected indifference: \u201cI\u2019m not doing a tit-for-tat with Sharon. She does what she does; nothing to do with me\u2026 I\u2019m not responding to it. Never have.\u201d His composure wavered when I mentioned that I had spoken to Graham prior to our discussion. He snapped: \u201cYou got a word in edgeways, did you?!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n A key part of the reforms in Birmingham is about, the official line goes, avoiding an equal pay claim from female refuse workers. The council had already paid out \u00a31.1bn from previous equal pay claims. Unequal pay between the sexes has \u201cbeen a running sore and a stain on local government\u2019s conscience,\u201d Caller said. Graham agrees, but insisted that in redressing pay, \u201cit is not the case that men should be pushed down\u2026 Women should be pushed up\u201d. That calculation is not compatible with Caller\u2019s agenda: \u201cThe suggestions that the national union makes can\u2019t ever be afforded\u2026 It\u2019s easy to say, \u2018Oh, well, you can level everybody else[\u2018s pay] up\u2019. We all know where the money is for that.\u201d<\/p>\n There are few people more authoritative on issues of local government than Caller. His very first council job, which he got in 1972, involved inspecting London\u2019s sewers. His later, more senior, jobs have seen him repair disaffected councils of Slough, Liverpool and Tower Hamlets. He has already received two offers that would bring him out of retirement once again \u2013 for the fourth time. \u201cPeople have come along and said, \u2018We don\u2019t believe that you\u2019re going to really retire. Can you come and talk to us after the summer?\u2019 And I will, but it\u2019ll have to be seriously interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n But he made it clear that he would not be at the forefront of another full-on council restoration. \u201cI will never do something as intense as leading an intervention ever again, because that really, really takes it out of you,\u201d Caller confided. \u201cIt\u2019s not a job for someone who thinks that you can\u2019t do it 24 hours a day.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only \u00a38.99 per month<\/p>\n Some argue leading councils was made impossible by austerity. Central government funding to local authorities declined by 40 per cent in real-terms between 2009\/10 and 2019\/2020. I asked if Caller had a view on Osborne\u2019s impact on local government. \u201cYes, and it\u2019s my view,\u201d he replied, unwilling to disclose any stance that might burn bridges in his lucrative line of work. \u201cIt\u2019s not for me to have a [public] view! I\u2019m not elected\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n He is more willing to blame a failure of localised planning. Perhaps they did austerity the wrong way round. Many \u201ccut their resources in the centre for short-term savings,\u201d Caller said. Cutting central operations \u201cto the bone\u201d prohibits councils from having the personnel or expertise to \u201cmake the savings that would have, over time, delivered better services for less money\u2026 That sort of approach has been the downfall of quite a number of authorities.\u201d Though he acknowledges: \u201cThe [current] cost pressures are huge on all parts of local government.\u201d<\/p>\n For many in Birmingham, the new cuts to frontline services Caller and the council have advanced have gone too far, too quickly. This year, as well as a 7.49 per cent increase in council tax, there were cuts of \u00a343m from adult social care, \u00a340m from children\u2019s social care, \u00a320m from various \u201ccity operations\u201d and \u00a318m from housing budgets. One man with severe disabilities took the council to court<\/a> over its refusal to reduce parts of his adult social care charges. \u201cYes, people have gone to court \u2013 but they haven\u2019t won,\u201d Caller remarked. Despite the financial mire the authority finds itself in, Caller believes that councillor John Cotton, the Labour leader of Birmingham City Council, is \u201ctaking hard, but proper political decisions, and they will come out of it\u201d.<\/p>\n Though he sees the cuts in Birmingham as a necessarily evil in the service of the greater good, Caller acknowledges \u201cthat people are concerned about services\u201d. He told me, \u201cI want [the] council to do the best they can with the resources that they\u2019ve got, because we know that people need their local authorities.\u201d He added: \u201cThe task of commissioners is always to help the council get back to doing what it\u2019s supposed to do: deliver services, lead the community, create opportunities and senses of place. Help people get those things without having to worry about whether or not their bin is actually going to be collected.\u201d<\/p>\n But whether it is bins, opportunity or sense of place, the consensus seems to be that the current system of local government simply isn\u2019t working anymore. Perhaps surprisingly, Caller agrees. He points to an ongoing review by the Welsh government, over how best to reshape municipal governance. \u201cThe Welsh local government doesn\u2019t yet seem to have a set of priorities that can be afforded\u2026 because if Westminster doesn\u2019t give Wales any more money\u2026 then something has to change.\u201d Caller added: \u201cIt may be that English local government needs to do a similar sort of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n When it comes to local government, Labour has spoken the language of devolution; complete destruction and reform has never been on the agenda. Caller has seemingly called time \u2013 cautiously \u2013 on the current structures. \u201cI\u2019ve been around in local government for such a long time. There are things done now that we didn\u2019t do then; and there are things that we don\u2019t do now that were done in the 1970s,\u201d he said. \u201cLocal government shape-shifts [over time]\u2026 so it may be that\u2019s what we\u2019ve got to do. We\u2019ve got to say, \u2018What is local governments meant to be about?\u2019, and then work out what to do.\u201d Time will tell.\u00a0<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/dl6pgk4f88hky.cloudfront.net\/2021\/09\/TNS_master_logo.svg\"){kind=logo}
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