Birmingham City Council in Serious Financial Mess

[BoldonLad]

The Tories have cut funding for Blackpool council by something like 1.2/1.4 billion since 2010....go figure.

Must have been some mega waste before 2010

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Forced? where any Councillors or Council Officials jailed, deselected, fired or otherwise penalised for not entering into these enterprises for which they were inadequately skilled, wouldn't that be a reason for caution?, which seems to have been remarkably absent.

The fact that no council declared itself bankrupt between 2000 and 2022 indicates that caution came into their thinking to some degree. The fact the 6 have gone to the wall in the last couple of years with a further 26 on the danger list indicates that things are desperate; and desperation does not go with caution. But blame the victim by all means, just don't expect it to help with the problem.

 

[Deleted member 49]

Must have been some mega waste before 2010

Might sound like a witty reply but Austerity has crippled places like Blackpool,there's a reason why it remains one of the most deprived areas in the UK.

 

[BoldonLad]

Might sound like a witty reply but Austerity has crippled places like Blackpool,there's a reason why it remains one of the most deprived areas in the UK.

South Tyneside is not exactly a boom area, it too has had massive budget cuts. The failure to thrive has been happening to South Tyneside for my entire life, before Rishi was even born. Investing is a form of spending, but, not all spending is investing.

 

[Mike_P]

Central Government have been cutting funding to councils to the point a number were running some services self funded and measures to raise funds were looked for hence the, in hindsight, stupid property deals.
In North Yorkshire Ryedale solved their finances by selling off land they owned on the edge of York for development, making so much money they did not levy a local tax for a couple of years at least. Now all North Yorkshire councils have been merged into one unitary which has an immediate financial loss to address.
The large spends are on education,social services and highways and surely there should be a case for them to run as nationally funded agencies rather than through Councils. The fact a school for example in Settle is managed from Northallerton rather than say Birmingham is hardly going to have any great local consequence.

 

[Bromptonaut]

The large spends are on education,social services and highways and surely there should be a case for them to run as nationally funded agencies rather than through Councils. The fact a school for example in Settle is managed from Northallerton rather than say Birmingham is hardly going to have any great local consequence.

Education is, these days pretty centralised. Funding for Academies, which covers the vast majority of senior schools, is delivered, albeit via local Commissioners, from Whitehall.

The idea that Northallerton as a seat of local government for North Yorks was joke when it started in 1974; you could swing the county from there....

The burghers of Settle would probably rather they were managed from Skipton or wherever but if you suggest local services in Yorkshire be run from Birmingham (never mind Manchester or elsewhere in the bailiwick of the Red Rose) you'd have a revolt before your could say eee by gum.....

 

[Mike_P]

There's a strong opinion the unitary status for the whole of North Yorkshire ( and bar the existing York) was a totally political judgement. It looks weird given it size when there are two unitarys for Cumbria. Eastern North Yorkshire would have been Scarborough, Ryedale (Malton), York (which is its own Unitary) and Selby with three quarters having strong non Troy voters.

North Yorkshire originally was a shot gun marriage of parts of the West Riding with the North Riding chunk that fell outside of Teeside. For some reason reviewing the whole boundary relationship never occurs. The North Yorkshire like towns of Wetherby, Otley and Ilkley, which are in Leeds and Bradford, linked with Craven (Skipton) and Harrogate would probably be big enough as a unitary on its own. The western North Yorkshire that was proposed would have been Craven, Harrogate, Hambleton (Northallerton) and Richmond(shire).

 

[Pale Rider]

The only agreement in Yorkshire is no one, but no one, wants anything to do with Teesside/Cleveland.

 

[Deleted member 49]

Some like to try and blame greedy councils...but the reality of Austerity is still hitting hard.
https://inews.co.uk/news/playgrounds-leisure-centres-councils-cut-funding-children-2603282

 

[CXRAndy]

Councils spend far too much on frivolous virtue signalling. Just do your basic jobs nothing else

 

[Bromptonaut]

Councils spend far too much on frivolous virtue signalling. Just do your basic jobs nothing else

Even if that were true it has no relevance to Birmingham's problems which seem to be mostly about legacy equal pay claims.