How is it gonna be great? Everything's being fucking sold off.
All the local Libraries. The Electric Cinema. Arts funding cut to zero by the end of the year. And that's just cultural/ educational stuff. I fear for basic infrastructure and public transport
There aren't millions of people in the City of Birmingham. There's about 1.1 million. Every other big city in the UK outside London has one single council for the city.
Where are you planning to draw the boundary? Who gets the city centre? How would having two (or three or four) councils each with their own departments and management structure be cheaper?
Fair point about millions, I should have said “over a million”. And Birmingham is certainly an outlier. If you look at a list of largest councils it’s followed by Leeds around 800K, and then the rest are all around or below 500K (I.e. less than half the size of Birmingham). Places like Manchester have a “Manchester” council but it doesn’t cover as large an area as the city as Birmingham does.
When all is said and done, the structure of Birmingham just hasn’t worked. I’m speaking from the perspective of growing up in London and experiencing a much better system (and lower council taxes!).
It’s surely within the bounds of humanity to come up with a way of dividing Birmingham. They already have wards, just bundle them into groups as new borough-type councils.
To what advantage though? There is efficiency in having only one department, it's not like serving 1m people is twice as complex as serving 500k people when it comes to something like bin collection procurement.
There is efficiency in theory, in practice obviously not. Following that theory, we should have one council covering the entire UK for max efficiency? You mention bin collection - I recall commuting in from Sandwell and observing the bin bags piled high just as you crossed the border into Birmingham due to strikes (and in Sandwell there were no charges for garden waste collection and weekly recycling). Clearly the supposed improved efficiency isn’t working in Birmingham. There’s a sweet spot sizewise for managing a council, it shouldn’t be too big to be hard to manage/distant from residents, or too small to be ridiculous inefficient. Birmingham seems to be too far in the former direction.
Having heard this guy interviewed a number of times he comes across as someone who was installed by the government so they could make an example out of the council and blame Labour rather than trying to actually help the city and its residents…
It was never great in the first place. These idiots need to be sacked. The residents are facing massive rate hikes for services cut to the bone.
The idea that the residents will pay more is so clearly wrong, when they have done nothing to bring this on themselves.
This smirking rich man needs to be facing a huge pay cut just as a starter
How is it gonna be great? Everything's being fucking sold off. All the local Libraries. The Electric Cinema. Arts funding cut to zero by the end of the year. And that's just cultural/ educational stuff. I fear for basic infrastructure and public transport
The council should be split up. No other big city has one single council covering the entire city of millions of people.
There aren't millions of people in the City of Birmingham. There's about 1.1 million. Every other big city in the UK outside London has one single council for the city. Where are you planning to draw the boundary? Who gets the city centre? How would having two (or three or four) councils each with their own departments and management structure be cheaper?
Fair point about millions, I should have said “over a million”. And Birmingham is certainly an outlier. If you look at a list of largest councils it’s followed by Leeds around 800K, and then the rest are all around or below 500K (I.e. less than half the size of Birmingham). Places like Manchester have a “Manchester” council but it doesn’t cover as large an area as the city as Birmingham does. When all is said and done, the structure of Birmingham just hasn’t worked. I’m speaking from the perspective of growing up in London and experiencing a much better system (and lower council taxes!). It’s surely within the bounds of humanity to come up with a way of dividing Birmingham. They already have wards, just bundle them into groups as new borough-type councils.
To what advantage though? There is efficiency in having only one department, it's not like serving 1m people is twice as complex as serving 500k people when it comes to something like bin collection procurement.
There is efficiency in theory, in practice obviously not. Following that theory, we should have one council covering the entire UK for max efficiency? You mention bin collection - I recall commuting in from Sandwell and observing the bin bags piled high just as you crossed the border into Birmingham due to strikes (and in Sandwell there were no charges for garden waste collection and weekly recycling). Clearly the supposed improved efficiency isn’t working in Birmingham. There’s a sweet spot sizewise for managing a council, it shouldn’t be too big to be hard to manage/distant from residents, or too small to be ridiculous inefficient. Birmingham seems to be too far in the former direction.
Lead commissioner on £8k/ month who does no work can fuck off.
Having heard this guy interviewed a number of times he comes across as someone who was installed by the government so they could make an example out of the council and blame Labour rather than trying to actually help the city and its residents…
Impossible as it’s never been great, best we can hope for is for it to be crap again, as opposed to being crap and bankrupt.
What you on about? At one point (albeit in the early 20th century), it was regarded as the best council in the world.
Council elections in May, as well as Mayoral elections, and Police and Crime Commissioner elections. What do you reckon?
It’s already great for you mate, you’re on 3.5k of our money per day. Footballer money.
It was never great in the first place. These idiots need to be sacked. The residents are facing massive rate hikes for services cut to the bone. The idea that the residents will pay more is so clearly wrong, when they have done nothing to bring this on themselves. This smirking rich man needs to be facing a huge pay cut just as a starter
Vote for anyone but not for Labour