Labour

We may get a black Pope: will we ever get a black Tory councillor?

The inside track on Birmingham City Council - Paul Dale's Diary

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Published February 12, 2013, in Mr Dale's Diary


councilhouseIt is probably a coincidence that Mike Whitby announced his intention to remain leader of the dwindling band of Birmingham Tory councillors just a few hours after the Pope said he would be abdicating.

Such are the affairs of great men, though, that the timing of these proclamations invariably raises more questions than answers.

Whitby, rattled by criticism of his extremely low profile since losing the council leadership last May, says he is renewed and eager to carry the fight to Labour. A perfect opportunity to do so will be at the annual budget meeting later this month where, for the first time in eight years the Conservative group will put forward its own spending proposals.

Any prospect of a joint Tory-Lib Dem budget in the spirit of the two parties’ coalition was dismissed somewhat abruptly by Liberal Democrat leader Paul Tilsley: “It will be my intention to present a

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Labour says: trust the people (even Tories and Lib Dems)

Birmingham devolution plans will put opposition councillors in city council cabinet

By:
Published May 22, 2012, in Politics


Sutton Coldfield Town Hall

Devolving powers and budgets from the centralised Council House to locally-based constituency committees has, on paper, been a key Birmingham City Council policy since 2005.

But the push towards localisation put in place by Sir Albert Bore before Labour lost control to a Tory-Lib Dem coalition in 2004 struggled to achieve its aims, caught up in a clash of opposing interests between the council’s executive cabinet and backbench councillors from all political parties on the committees.

Too often, the constituency committees discovered that important budgetary decisions were taken by the cabinet and that, in any case, city-wide service contracts severely limited the scope for change when it came to services like refuse collection and street cleaning.

The initiative also exposed internal differences in the coalition, where

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Labour announces Birmingham council scrutiny team

Monitoring bodies to have new policy development role

By:
Published May 16, 2012, in Politics


The line-up of the new Labour Party administration in charge of Birmingham City Council has been finalised with the appointment of scrutiny committee chairmen.

Veteran Ladywood councillor Carl Rice heads up the scrutiny function with a remit to monitor the council executive, develop new policy initiatives and probe the performance of other public bodies.

He will chair the Resources, Governance and Member Development committee.

The other scrutiny chairmen are:

*Susan Barnett, Health and Social Care

*Ian Cruise, Birmingham Economy and Jobs

*Majid Mahmood, Partnership, Contract Performance and the Third Sector

*Victoria Quinn, Transport, Connectivity and Sustainability

*Anita Ward, Education and Vulnerable Children

*Waseem Zaffer, Social Cohesion and Community Safety

Coun Rice said the scrutiny committees would have a wider remit than previously.

He added:  “The committees are to develop policy and think through the challenges that the city will face in the future.

“Labour has a vision of Birmingham as a green, safe, smart and fair city. We want to become Britain’s Enterprise Capital. We need to harvest ideas and develop policies from every possible source.

“We have put together a first class team who will be able to meet this challenge. We will be the “critical friend” of the decision makers within the council and crucially the voice of the public.”

The last part of the new administration, the devolved District Committees, has also been announced.

The committees, with £100 million-plus budgets, will be run by local councillors and assume responsibility for delivering a wide range of services including housing management.

Chairmen of the six committees where Labour has a majority of councillors are: Erdington, Penny Holbrook; Ladywood, Yvonne Mosquito; Hodge Hill, Ansar Ali Khan; Northfield, Peter Griffiths; Perry Barr, Mahmood Hussain; Hall Green, Habib Rechman.

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Birmingham Tories ‘odds-on’ to re-elect Mike Whitby as leader

No-one wants job enough to mount a credible challenge, claims top Conservative

By:
Published May 9, 2012, in Politics


Mike Whitby

The cockerel in the Council House courtyard didn’t crow three times, but Mike Whitby’s claim that the Conservatives haven’t been in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats for the past eight years was still a denial on an almost breath-taking scale.

Whitby, the Tory leader of Birmingham City Council until May 22 when Labour’s Sir Albert Bore takes over, was being goaded with the C-word when he finally snapped: “We were never in a coalition.”

He was of course attempting to distinguish between a formal coalition and his preferred form of words for the council’s current arrangements, a partnership between Tories and Liberal Democrats. Or, as Coun Whitby insists on calling it: the Progressive Partnership.

The sharp exchange at the Council Business Management Committee did however raise two important issues: namely,

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City’s new Labour bosses facing 16% pay cut

Labour councillors to be ordered to surrender allowances to help boost ailing party finances

By:
Published May 8, 2012, in Politics


Politicians rubbing their hands at the prospect of being given top jobs in Birmingham’s new Labour-led city council administration will not be quite as well rewarded as they first thought.

In fact, prospective cabinet members and chairmen of scrutiny and regulatory committees are staring at pay cuts of up to 16 per cent.

A 10 per cent reduction in Special Responsibility Allowances (SRAs) has already been agreed by the outgoing Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition in an attempt to show the people of Birmingham that “we feel your pain” during these harsh economic times.

And now it’s emerged that a further six per cent could be lopped from the allowances by orders of the Labour Party. The last Labour conference backed the proposal to take up to six per cent from allowances paid to

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