Councils

Birmingham museums chief quits after six months in post

Ann Sumner to step down for 'personal and family' reasons

By:
Published December 5, 2012, in Councils

Ann Sumner

The director of a trust set up to run Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and Thinktank at Millennium Point has resigned after just six months in the job.

Professor Ann Sumner was appointed at the beginning of May with the remit of taking the helm after a decision to move the city’s museums from council control to an independent charitable trust.

Chamberlain News understands that Professor Sumner cited “personal and family reasons” in her resignation letter.

The decision will be a blow to Birmingham Museums Trust since Professor Sumner was regarded as one of the leading experts in the public arts field.

In setting up the trust the city council hoped to inject much needed finance into Birmingham’s museums, largely through

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Disabled council workers face sack as ‘no redundancy’ pledge backfires

53 jobs to go at loss-making window frames manufacturer Shelforce

By:
Published December 4, 2012, in Councils

Fifty-three people are to lose their jobs at a Birmingham City Council sheltered employment scheme for disabled workers nine months after being promised they would not be made redundant.

The local authority’s new Labour leadership has decided that a deteriorating financial position at Shelforce, a unit producing double glazed window frames, cannot be allowed to continue.

The unit’s losses total £4.5 million over the past five years after the recession hit the construction industry and orders for windows dried up. Attempts to diversify into other areas failed.

Although Shelforce has an order book worth £2 million a year, its costs are £4.6 million a year.

Cabinet member for development, jobs and skills, Tahir Ali, said

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Birmingham set to pioneer Heseltine growth plans

City expects to pilot radical transfer of powers and budgets from Whitehall to regions

By:
Published November 29, 2012, in Councils

Birmingham is likely to be chosen as the pilot city to investigate ways of implementing the economic growth agenda outlined in a wide-ranging report by Tory grandee Michael Heseltine.

In what’s being seen as a considerable coup, Lord Heseltine is expected to spend several weeks in Birmingham with a team of experts investigating how his ideas about giving more powers and budgets to local councils and enterprise partnerships would work in practice.

The former Trade and Industry Secretary intends to publish a report in March 2013 setting out ways in which Birmingham could be “freed from the shackles of Whitehall”, according to a spokesman for the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP).

At the centre of Lord Heseltine’s deliberations will be ideas setting out how

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Peace breaks out on High Speed Rail front

Councils bury HS2 hatchet to lobby for major transport improvements

By:
Published November 27, 2012, in Councils

Birmingham city centre and New Street Station (Photo credit: marcreeves)

West Midlands councils are setting aside their differences over high speed rail to lobby the Government for major public transport improvements ahead of the arrival to the region of HS2 in 2026.

Centro, the Integrated Transport Authority, is expected to support three major projects aimed at making it easier for passengers to use HS2 stations at the NEC and in Birmingham city centre.

Members of a connectivity working party include representatives from high speed rail backers – Birmingham City Council, Birmingham Airport and Solihull Council – as well as outspoken opponents including Coventry Council, North Warwickshire Council and Warwickshire County Council.

Proposals in a draft package of improvements include:

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Get set for another rubbish city council debate

Birmingham Liberal Democrats insist: only give wheelie bins to 'people who can manage them'

By:
Published November 27, 2012, in Councils

It is well known that Birmingham has an issue with rubbish.

The city council has struggled for years over the future of the black sack refuse collection service.

To modernise, or not? Continue with unsightly piles of plastic bags, or follow many other local authorities by introducing wheelie bins?

Birmingham’s Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition spent much of the period 2004-2012 fretting about the possibility of industrial action by binmen, which it was feared would result in vote-losing pictures in the media of bags of rotting rubbish spewed across pavements and streets.

During that period the coalition fought off attempts by Labour councillors, and also by some Liberal Democrats, to switch to wheelie bins in an effort to boost recycling rates.

In 2006, Ian Coghill, Director of Environmental Services, told a that Birmingham’s black plastic sack refuse collection system

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Council lodges official complaint over I’m A Celebrity smoking scenes

Steve Bedser accused of 'nanny state' interference, but insists: 'I'm no killjoy'

By:
Published November 23, 2012, in Councils

A Birmingham City Council cabinet member has been accused of promoting a ‘nanny state’ after lodging an official complaint about a television game-show contestant being filmed smoking.

Steve Bedser, a Labour councilor who holds the Health and Wellbeing portfolio, wrote to the regulator Ofcom about scenes in ITV’s I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here showing Coronation Street actress Helen Flanagan “repeatedly smoking”.

He claimed her conduct was likely to set a bad example to young people watching the popular programme.

But some of Coun Bedser’s political opponents took to Twitter to accuse him of over-zealous behavior and acting outside of his cabinet remit.

Matt Bennet, a former Consrvative city councilor who ran for West Midlands Police Commissioner, said: “The idea that saddos

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Birmingham Council reveals ‘horrendous’ £757 million equal pay bombshell

Sir Albert Bore warns of more service cuts as city faces growing compensation bill

By:
Published November 12, 2012, in Councils

Thirty-seven years after Barbara Castle’s Equal Pay Act became law, Birmingham City Council is finally facing the reckoning for decades of discrimination against women workers.

According to estimates by the District Auditor, Britain’s largest local authority must find £757 million to compensate former female members of staff who were not paid at the same rate as men carrying out similar work.

There is little option for the council but to borrow the money, which means that £75 million a year is already being spent on equal pay debt and interest repayments – money that would otherwise be used to shore up essential services.

But that figure is likely to rise as a direct result of the recent Supreme Court decision in the case of Abdulla and others, which opened the way for scores of office cleaners, cooks, care workers and other low-paid council employees to have their claims dealt with by the High Court rather than at an employment tribunal.

The decision is significant because

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Bus-free Birmingham city centre gets High Court approval

Campaigner fails in bid to re-open consultation on Metro extension

By:
Published November 8, 2012, in Councils

Corporation Street

One man’s battle to get buses back into Birmingham’s central shopping area has been defeated at the High Court.

Campaigner Robin Clarke was seeking a judicial review into the Transport Secretary’s decision to approve a £75 million city centre extension of the Midland Metro tram system, arguing that there were “extreme deficiencies” in public consultation about the impact the scheme would have.

He told the High Court in Birmingham of widespread anger over the re-routing of buses to accommodate the Metro extension from Snow Hill to New Street Station.

Buses can no longer travel along Corporation Street, Upper Bull Street and Stevenson Street. Passengers must use

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Chuggers to get their marching orders

Birmingham wants city centre ban on 'in your face' charity street collectors

By:
Published November 6, 2012, in Councils

Charity street collectors may be banned from Birmingham’s main shopping area under radical plans being considered by the city council.

Scores of enthusiastic young people regularly patrol New Street and the surrounding area.in an attempt to persuade passers-by to make regular direct debit payments to various charities.

But most people think the approach is too enthusiastic and have had enough of the “in your face” tactics according to Birmingham’s Licensing Committee chairman.

Barbara Dring has asked local authority lawyers to find a way of banning the so-called chuggers – charity muggers – from Birmingham city centre and from Sutton Coldfield. A report setting out the practicalities of a ban is likely to be considered by the council cabinet later this month.

She believes that hard-sell tactics employed by the chuggers are

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A new lease of life for City Regions

Birmingham ready with olive branch to get West Midlands partnership back on track

By:
Published October 31, 2012, in Councils

City Regions have been given a  new lease of life by Michael Heseltine’s report on growth, raising the possibility that the West Midlands could be given powers and budgets to oversee economic development and transportation.

Lord Heseltine recommends elected mayors for conurbations, as well as proposing substantial funding for Local Enterprise Partnerships which would be free from Whitehall ‘diktat’ and allowed to decide spending priorities for themselves.

The Government response to the Heseltine Report will be crucial in deciding whether City Regions finally move from the drawing board and become administrative realities.

The West Midlands’ experience with embryonic regional government has been fraught with petty rows and disputes. A move to bring all seven metropolitan authorities together under a shadow city region framework collapsed after

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