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Bankrupt Birmingham!

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It is partly about a court decision regarding retrospective payments for female workers and equal pay which the local authority are required to pay. This is the situation for a number of local authorities.
 
How can the largest local authority in Europe allow itself to get into a position, where the only option is to declare itself bankrupt? How embarrassing for the city and for it's residents. Joseph Chamberlain and those before and after him, that did so much to build this city, must be turning in their graves. It can only be total incompetence over a number of years, a total lack of foresight and a complete lack of risk assessment/management. Those responsible, that were no doubt busy "working on a beach" when this was allowed to happen, should hang their heads in shame and resign, without the customary six figure pay off, to cushion the blow.
 
This is the bit I find utterly astonishing:- 1693984794949.png
This guy is supposed to be in charge - being paid a kings ransom to do so - and yet he is oblivious to everything around him even though essential spending was halted a couple of months ago, and the government said this was expected. Utter incompetence!!!

As for who foots the bill, I am reminded of a quote from Blackadder - "Percy - one of us is for the chop. You or me in fact. Lets face it Perce - its you!!!"
 
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I live in Birmingham and in all honesty feel no shame. It’s a significantly large city with all of the problems associated with large cities. Poverty, shortage of decent housing and unemployment. Underpin this with inadequate the funding that had been occurring over many years and we have what we have today. It is certainly not down to any one individual on or off the beach.

The problems with the equal pay claims have been a long standing problem that spans across all of the political parties that have been in power.

The bonus system of payment that started off in the late 50’s early 60’s for some workers was well intended in its origins, to increase productivity and give more money to working people. It did work for a considerable time, but it was always only papering over the cracks despite the fact that bankers and CEO’s still say they deserve bonuses.

My opinion of the council is that it has for a long time had problems with poor management and labour relations. Both the senior officers and the politicians on both sides have created a culture of poor working conditions and a bullying culture that have left staff with no confidence in their managers, so they turn to the trade unions have all for help. You only need to look at the employment tribunal case lists.

Management gets the trad unions they deserve.
 
In all fairness where the source of that from is from would be interesting to now. I speak to some of the Birmingham politicians regularly and that have been aware for quite a few years of this financial problem and are quite open about it.
 
hi mort if you are referring to mr cotton...it was on the news last night that he is on holiday..it was my intention not to comment on this as over the past 10 or more years on this forum you will see posts from me predicting that the city will become bankrupt...not so much due to the equal pay bill which although is a few million pounds but more to the billions of pounds that bcc has ploughed into building white elephant schemes that do not bring in any revenue...just look around at at all the empty apartments the latest being the blocks built at perry barr originally planned to be the olympic village for the worlds top athletes..it was not finished on time so they said they will be letting the apartments out...well i dont know whats happened but as far as i know not one single apartment has been occupied..waste of money..birmingham library not fit for purpose in my opinon...the metro trams always breaking down together with faulty track and causing more chaos and costing more money to repair..miles of cycle tracks barely used and what about all the redevopement around the digbeth area...will some of that now grind to a halt athough i am quite aware that bcc are not paying for all of it but who will now want to invest in a bankrupt city...the old saying springs to mind of "cut your coat according to your cloth" something that for many years now the powers that be have not done so it comes as no surprise to myself and i dare say others that the city is now in a right old mess and once again the good people of birmingham will suffer for it

lyn
 
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-65663393
John Cotton took over from Ian Ward as Labour leader in May this year. But all members of the council should have known about the financial situation for years. It was good that the games drew attention to the city, but this news will draw Birmingham detractors. I was born in the city and worked there for 32 years and lived over the border in Smethwick for another 30 odd years. A sorry state of affairs.
 
I wonder who signed off the audited accounts? Surely they should have shown this situation and it should have been very clear to all concerned in the preparation of the annual accounts. This should not have come as a shock to anyone working for, or on the council and they should have tried to do something about it, well before now. I suppose the work outside the Council House (below) will now stop and you have to wonder, why it was allowed to start, given the funds weren't there to pay for it.

1693998350656.png
 
John L said:
I wonder who signed off the audited accounts? Surely they should have shown this situation and it should have been very clear to all concerned in the preparation of the annual accounts. This should not have come as a shock to anyone working for, or on the council and they should have tried to do something about it, well before now. I suppose the work outside the Council House (below) will now stop and you have to wonder, why it was allowed to start, given the funds weren't there to pay for it.

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hi john ... do not be surprised if the work does continue..cant have it looking a dump outside the council house:eek:...will keep an eye on that

lyn
 
John L said:
How can the largest local authority in Europe allow itself to get into a position, where the only option is to declare itself bankrupt? How embarrassing for the city and for it's residents. Joseph Chamberlain and those before and after him, that did so much to build this city, must be turning in their graves. It can only be total incompetence over a number of years, a total lack of foresight and a complete lack of risk assessment/management. Those responsible, that were no doubt busy "working on a beach" when this was allowed to happen, should hang their heads in shame and resign, without the customary six figure pay off, to cushion the blow.
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This is strictly a legal maneuver to avoid paying bills. Some/many vendors will not get paid and the marginal ones will also go bankrupt or out of business. Unfortunately those who caused this will be relatively unscathed sans some embarrassment, financially they always seem to be fine! And might even get to keep or get new jobs!
 
One of the significant contributing factors seems to be the implementation of IT systems contrary to the suppliers recommendations:- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-65962507
Oddly this is exactly what the BBC did trying to implement SAP many years ago - think that cost them 7 years of grief and over £70m of cost. It is the IT equivalent of smashing a square peg into a round hole, even though the hole digger is continually telling you his hole is round and your peg is square...........
 
Mark Tooze said:
One of the significant contributing factors seems to be the implementation of IT systems contrary to the suppliers recommendations:- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-65962507
Oddly this is exactly what the BBC did trying to implement SAP many years ago - think that cost them 7 years of grief and over £70m of cost. It is the IT equivalent of smashing a square peg into a round hole, even though the hole digger is continually telling you his hole is round and your peg is square...........
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What was the problem with SAP, wrong application?
 
There was a write up a couple of weeks regarding how much certain taxi companies were being paid taking children to and from school. It was ridiculous amounts for such short journeys.
 
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