Leader of crisis-hit council pledges to stay on

Councillor John Cotton, Labour leader of Birmingham City Council, said he would not be following the chief executive out of the door.

Birmingham City Council’s leader has said he will not be following the chief executive out of the door of the local authority.

John Cotton, Labour, who was appointed in May, told BBC WM that he believed it was his responsibility to get the council “back on that road to financial stability”.

Chief executive Deborah Cadman announced she would leave her role at the end of the month, despite insisting in January that she had no intention of resigning.

Her departure announcement comes just days after Birmingham set its annual budget, aiming to work towards £300m of cuts needed over the next two years.

The council has declared effective bankruptcy as it also wrestles with estimated costs of about £1bn connected to equal pay claims and the failed implementation of IT and finance system Oracle.

Birmingham City Council plans to save £300m over the next two years.

Mr Cotton said the decision to leave was Ms Cadman’s and her departure from the £250,000-a-year role would not involve any extraordinary payments.

He said: “What we’ve not got here is any pay-off or golden handshake or anything like that. It is just the standard terms on which somebody would retire.”

He said exact figures would be published in the council’s annual accounts.

As she announced her decision to step down after three years, Ms Cadman said in an email to staff on Wednesday she was "incredibly disappointed with the council’s current financial position”.

In the message, she said she was appointed with a brief of delivering the Commonwealth Games in the city, adding it had always been her intention to exit once the 2024-25 financial budget was agreed.

Professor Graeme Betts CBE, Ms Cadman's deputy, would be acting chief executive while a permanent replacement was sought, the authority said.

As well as the wave of cuts to services signed off this month, the council also plans a council tax rise of 21% over the next two years.

Mr Cotton has repeatedly acknowledged Birmingham's specific failings but he also insists increased costs and demand, and reduced funding from central Government, have added to the authority’s problems.