'Bankrupt' Birmingham council leader apologises to city

Councillor John Cotton said he apologised for the "impact" the council's finances will have on citizens

The leader of Birmingham City Council has apologised to the people of the city and insisted he had "no prior notice" of its "bankruptcy" crisis.

Councillor John Cotton said he had met with Levelling Up secretary Michael Gove this week to discuss support.

The leader was on holiday in the US when the section 114 notice was issued, halting all new spending.

He confirmed "all council activity" was being reviewed but pledged to protect "the things that matter most".

Speaking to Politics Midlands, he said: "It is clear we are facing a number of challenges in Birmingham so I would like to start by offering an apology on behalf of Birmingham City Council to the people of the city.

"I am apologising for the impact we know this has on citizens.

"We are having to review all of our council activity, and look at where we make our spend but my priority is that we continue focus on front-line service delivery, the things that matter most to the people of this city."

He said he did not want to add to "the burdens of people in the city who have already been going through a cost of living crisis".

Birmingham City Council is to stop all new spending, with the exception of money protecting vulnerable people and statutory services

Councillor Cotton has come under fire for being out of the country on a family holiday when the Section 114 was declared, but said he had "no prior notice" it was going to happen and took "immediate steps to grip the situation".

The notice means the council is only committing to fund statutory services, like refuse collection, schools and adult social care.

He insisted he had confident on the cabinet team and officers who were working to deliver a financial recovery plan, which will be discussed at a meeting of the authority on 25 September.

The city council's problems are, in part, because it needs to settle a £760m bill for equal pay claims and it had already taken the decision to stop non-essential spending. in July.

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It also faces an immediate budget shortfall of £87m this year, and has blamed the implementation of its Oracle IT system for its desperate situation.

Mr Cotton said he met Mr Gove, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and was having ongoing communication with his department and the Local Government Association as the authority recognised it had challenges and needed assistance to address them.

But Mr Cotton said the issue was "in the context of 10 years of austerity and cuts to services" and that councils across the country were seeing problems due to cuts from central government to local authority funding.

Mr Cotton pledged to protect the services that matter most to people in Birmingham

In response Marcus Jones, Conservative MP for Nuneaton, said the situation was "absolute incompetence".

"To try and lay the blame at the door of anyone else is unbelievable," he said.

"Where councils have done the right things, got on top of the issues right from the start, where councils haven't made silly investments in all sorts of things councils shouldn't be meddling in, they are in a reasonably good position."

While Steve McCabe, Labour MP for Birmingham Selly Oak, added: "I am embarrassed that this has happened in Birmingham.

"But we have got to be realistic, this is not just a Birmingham problem, this is happening all over the country."