Birmingham Post - News Blog

Don't hold your breath for the Rover trust fund to pay up

2009-11-03T17:42:45Z

I've been writing today about the MG Rover trust fund, which was discussed in a House of Commons debate led by Richard Burden (Lab Northfield), the Birmingham MP.

You may know that the former Rover directors, known as the Phoenix Four, promised to turn what left of the business into cash to be distributed to former employees, when the carmarker collapsed in 2005.

So far there's been no money, and the official explanation is that the business could not be liquidated while an official government inquiry into its affairs was still taking place.

Now that the inquiry is over - it reported in September - Mr Burden wants the money transferred to the employees' fund as soon as possible.

Fair enough. But let's remember that there is no guarantee there will ever be any money at all.

The corpse of MG Rover has creditors as well as assets. It needs to pay them off first.

Some of the Government's critics have talked up the importance of the trust fund, claiming that the lengthy inquiry into Rover's affairs stopped former employees getting their cash.

But they may be guilty of raising false hopes. I hope former Rover staff receive compensation but I wouldn't assume anything until they have the money in their pockets.

Time for Be Birmingham to step out of the shadows and answer some questions

2009-11-02T10:11:08Z

The ongoing row over Be Birmingham's use of the city's £115 million Working Neighbourhoods Fund puts the spotlight on a very shadowy organisation.
It is doubtful whether many people outside of the rarefied world of local government have ever heard of the City Strategic Partnership, as Be Birmingham used to be known before undergoing a trendy name change.
But this unelected body, which meets behind closed doors in private, is entrusted by the city council and the government to play an increasingly important role in deciding how large sums of public money should be spent - or not spent in this case.

To recap, this newspaper recently exposed Be Birmingham's plodding attempts to use its WNF allocation. Eighteen months into a three-year scheme, just £30 million had actually been spent and only £2.5 million of that went directly on projects to combat worklessness.
Attempts to discover what the £27.5 million not spent on worklessness has actually been spent on have, so far, proved fruitless.
I have also asked this organisation to set out how it intends to spend the remaining £85 million it is sitting on, what targets it has agreed with the government for reducing unemployment in Birmingham, and the progress being made toward meeting those targets.
What we do know is that less than half of the £115 million - some £46 million - is being directed at reducing worklessness, in a city where unemployment in inner city wards reeling from the worst recession since the 1930s is 30 per cent.
On the other hand, funding from WNF has been agreed for projects to fight obesity, get rid of graffiti and promote cultural festivals.
It has also been confirmed that £14 million originally earmarked for worklessness schemes has been "reallocated" to bail out the city council's overspending adults social services - a decision described as a smash and grab raid on unemployed people in Birmingham by Sparkbrook Lib Dem councillor Jerry Evans.
Be Birmingham's 15-strong board consists of city council directors and representatives from health trusts, the police, fire authority, chamber of commerce, regional development agency and the voluntary sector. Its chairman is Paul Tilsley, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader of Birmingham City Council.
When Be Birmingham was the City Strategic Partnership, and chaired by Tilsley's predecessor John Hemming, its board meetings were open to the public.
Hemming, to his credit, fought a long battle to convince board members that this was the right and proper thing to do.
But when Hemming went and Tilsley arrived, the shutters went down and newspapers were barred from attending Be Birmingham meetings.
Quite clearly, a serious problem of non-accountability exists.
Requests for an interview with Coun Tilsley have been turned down. This would be an excellent opportunity to explain the thinking behind the way WNF money is being allocated, to put the case for a wider focus than worklessness, but he does not wish to engage with the public through the media.
A better and more transparent option for the city council would be to subject Be Birmingham to a through investigation by a scrutiny committee.
Again, this seems most unlikely to happen. I believe I am right in saying that Be Birmingham's activities have never been the subject of a scrutiny probe.
This is the latest example of a worrying undemocratic trend seeping through local government.
Scrutiny committees have similarly been unwilling or unable to inquire into the activities of Service Birmingham, the arms-length company controlled by Capita set up to transform the council's IT services and deliver the business transformation project. Service Birmingham has contracts worth £617 million with the council and is the subject almost weekly of claims by councillors that it is failing to deliver, but has never been asked publicly to account for its performance.
I have absolutely no doubt that Coun Tilsley and his chums will argue that they are entirely accountable to the public through some torturous process whereby Tilsley is elected as a councillor and can be called upon to answer questions in the council chamber about the performance of Be Birmingham, Service Birmingham and other quangos.
The problem is, there never are any questions - or answers.

West Midlands Select Committee Growing Ever-Smaller

2009-10-29T13:13:46Z

I've written in the past about how the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are boycotting the West Midlands select committee, a House of Commons committee set up to ensure the Government is giving the region a fair deal.

Now it seems even Labour can't get its members on the Committee. The whole thing is rapidly descending into farce, despite the best efforts of the chairman, Birmingham MP Richard Burden (Lab Northfield).

There are supposed to be nine members of the West Midlands committee, which is currently investigating the effects of the recession on the people of the region.

Five of these are meant to be Labour, with three Tories and one Liberal Democrat.

But the Tories won't turn up, because they object to the whole idea of regional government.

The Lib Dems are also boycotting the committee, because they feel it is unfair they only get one member on the regional committee in places such as the south west where they have a lot of MPs (this doesn't really apply to the West Midlands, but local MPs are boycotting it anyway).

Mr Burden attempted to get independent MP Richard Taylor (Ind Wyre Forest) on the committee - but Lib Dems have managed to block this, by objecting to it in the House of Commons.

Now, Labour MP David Kidney (Lab Stafford) has left the committee, because he has got a Government job as an energy minister.

MP Janet Dean (Lab Burton) is meant to be his replacement.

But her appointment has also been blocked by opposition MPs, who appear determined to ensure the committee fails.

So out of nine committee places, only four are currently filled - and even Labour is only taking four of the five seats it is entitled to.

Did Mike Whitby really mean 8,000 when he said 800 jobs to go at city council?

2009-10-27T10:26:25Z

It is no great surprise that Birmingham City Council leader Mike Whitby is not encouraged by his advisers to grant live media interviews.
But, oddly enough, the man who finds it difficult not to embellish the simplest of claims appeared to be erring very much on the side of caution when he told BBC TV that some 800 council jobs were likely to go as part of a major cost-cutting drive.
Had Whitby stuck an additional nought on the end, he might have been nearer the mark.
The question at the city council has always been not so much how many jobs are likely to disappear, but how quickly can we get rid of them?

I advise anyone with an interest in these matters to take the trouble to attend monthly meetings of the splendid finance and performance scrutiny committee, under the chairmanship of Edgbaston Tory James Hutchings whose forensic examination of senior council officials is gradually exposing under-delivery of the local authority's ambitious business transformation programme.
Put simply, business transformation aims to save the council almost £1 billion over 10 years, largely through investing in better IT systems courtesy of outsourcing company Capita. Coun Hutchings and his colleagues have spent more than a year attempting to wheedle out of business change director Glyn Evans precisely how these savings are to be made.
The answer, naturally, is by slashing jobs among the council's 41,000 non-schools staff since savings of the size required can only realistically be delivered through reducing employment costs. But no one wants to say this publicly, or at least not to expose the extent of what is being planned.
Let's just consider one example. When the council's new website is finally running properly and it is possible for people in Birmingham to pay their bills and order council services online, there will be no need for an army of neighbourhood office staff. Eventually, there may even be no need for neighbourhood offices.
As well as better IT, business transformation is also driving forward the outsourcing of traditional town hall services.
Birmingham's fast-growing elderly population will increasingly in future be left with no alternative but to buy-in meals on wheels and day centre services from the independent and voluntary sectors. Hundreds of people currently in council-run residential care will move out as the city closes its old people's homes. Jobs in these areas are already disappearing at a fast rate of knots, with the likelihood of compulsory redundancies.
But business transformation will only deliver the promised savings if ambitious annual targets are met. Slippage of, say, £10 million a year would result in a £100 million shortfall over the period. And as Coun Hutchings and his committee are discovering, £10 million annual slippage looks about right so far.
To make matters worse, annual budgets for spending departments are worked out on the basis that business transformation savings will be delivered in full.
More than mid-way through the financial year, officials are desperately searching for ways of plugging gaping holes in their budgets. Even more jobs will be sacrificed as a result.
Up until now, Coun Whitby and chief executive Stephen Hughes have relied on the tried and tested formula that it should be possible to avoid compulsory redundancies because the council has in any case a 10 per cent staff turnover each year. So people whose jobs are under threat ought to be able to find another role somewhere in the organisation, even if that means re-training and possibly taking a wage cut.
It is becoming abundantly clear, however, that the vast scale of restructuring required to deliver savings and balance the council books are such that a very large number of jobs will go over the next year or so.
Did Mike Whitby say 800? Perhaps he meant 8,000.

Let's Give Spin the Red Card

2009-10-26T17:18:54Z

Birmingham's football clubs face a tax hike of more than £900,000 next year thanks to increases in business rates, according to Conservatives.

A press release from the Tories claims that Villa will see business rates go up from £637,775 to £1,309,380, an increase of £671,605.

And rates paid by Blues will go up from £575,460 to £334,650, an increase of £240,810.

Between them, they'll be paying an extra £912,415 to the taxman. It's all a result of a revaluation of business properties which comes into effect next year.

For example, Villa Park's rateable value has increased from £1.3 million to £3.1 million (according to the inspectors who decide these things), as you can see here: http://www.2010.voa.gov.uk/rli/en/basic/find/assessment-history/2010/10341021000

St Andrews is now deemed to be worth £1.4 million rather than £700,000 - and here's the link: http://www.2010.voa.gov.uk/rli/en/basic/find/assessment-history/2010/11144765000

As revaluations occur every five years, and the last one was in 2005, I'm not sure how shocking this is. Conservatives claim it could lead to higher ticket prices.

But what makes me smile a little is the toe-curling comment from Tory Shadow Local Government Minister Justine Greening.

She is quoted in the press release saying: "Even football, our national sport, is not safe from Gordon Brown's tax rises.

"If clubs pass on these extra costs, it could mean even higher ticket prices for fans. I'm sure many will think it is time to show this Government the red card."

It's one of those phrases that nobody would ever actually use, except perhaps when speaking to the media.

A new era for the Birmingham Post

2009-10-20T13:41:20Z

In three weeks' time, the last daily edition of the printed version of the
Birmingham Post will roll off our presses in Erdington, marking the end of
a publishing tradition that stretches back more than 150 years.

But it also marks a rebirth, as the Post starts a new chapter in its
evolution as a multimedia brand and its new life as a must-read weekly
title.

Never fewer than 100 pages in total - and often much bigger - all the paper's key strengths will be concentrated in one value-for-money read that you will want to keep in the office or around the house all week.

Alongside the relaunch of the print title, a brand new version of the Post will be delivered by email directly to your inbox every morning for you to scan at your screen, on your phone, your PDA - or even to print off and read in the old-fashioned way.

Together, the print and digital formats will deliver an unrivalled service. The stresses of the current economic downturn may well have hastened our move to become a genuinely multi-media title, but the result will be a paper that's better placed than almost any other to meet the challenges of the digital age by fusing innovation with its traditional values.

I'm sure existing readers will find much to like in the new Birmingham Post - and I'm also confident that the weekly title will have a much broader appeal across more of the whole West Midlands region than the current daily version.

Our already well-regarded online services will become an even more integral part of what we do, and by breaking news online every day of the week, there'll be no less Post coverage of the business and political stories that matter in the West Midlands.

The new paper, published every Thursday morning, will take broader and a deeper look at the major issues in the region.

That week-long perspective gives us an opportunity to really get under the skin of the decisions, trends and challenges that have the most impact. We can devote both more
time and more space to the reportage of Post staff - as well as to the comments and insights of the people involved, whether they are politicians, business people, academics or readers themselves.

In August, I shared with you the economic challenges faced by Trinity Mirror Midlands, the publisher of the Post and its stablemates the Birmingham Mail and the Sunday Mercury.

By going weekly, the Post can make its contribution to the changes the business has to make to secure its own long term future. Moreover, the change is a positive response to the challenges, and gives the Post a whole new business model that strengthens its profitability and future potential.

Unfortunately, all of this means that some of the Post's daily editorial team will lose their jobs, although we hope that as many as possible can be achieved through voluntary redundancy.

Over the past two months, everyone in the newsroom has been undergoing consultation about the future of the titles - and of course the future of their own roles.

As a member of the editorial team, I was also under consultation, and I thought it was very important that I should make a clear decision whether to stay and see the changes through - or to go and give the paper a fresh start under a new editor.

I believe that to stay I would have to commit to be editor for a considerable period into the future, but that after almost four years in the job already, the time is right for a new pair of hands to pick up the reins.

I am supremely pleased and proud of what has been achieved at the Post over
the past four years, and more than certain that its successes and reputation will continue to grow under a new editor.

I'm delighted that I can continue to work with an excellent team over the next few weeks as the changes to the Post and the business bed in, and I look forward to seeing his first weekly edition roll off the presses on November 12.

Is this the beginning of the end of local government as we know it?

2009-10-12T10:52:50Z

Is local government in terminal decline?
I only ask since it seems certain that forecast savage public spending cuts will force more Midland councils to hand over the dwindling number of services they continue to run to the private and voluntary sectors
The talk is of local authorities "commissioning" service delivery rather than providing it directly and the shift over the past decade has been amazing.
Even Birmingham City Council, which unusually for a large English authority continues to run most services in-house, is beginning to dismantle some of the last vestiges of a century of municipalisation.

Social services is bearing the brunt of this change, with plans to offload meals on wheels, day centres and home help provision already under way.
Allocating individual budgets to social care clients is bound to speed this process, as people begin to buy-in the help they need from the private sector.
On the transportation front, a £2 billion highways PFI will see responsibility for improving the entire city road network handed to Amey for a 25-year period.
It cannot be long, surely, before the council takes the plunge by deciding to contract out rubbish collection and street cleaning.
And what about all those back office functions, the payroll clerks and administrative back-up staff?
It's taken a long time to get there, but local government is not that far now from the vision set out by Michael Heseltine when he was Environment Secretary in the early 1980s. Heseltine forecast a time when councils like Birmingham would meet in executive form only four times a year in a manner similar to boards of directors - their task simply to keep an eye on the performance of local authority services contracted out to private firms.
One thing that hasn't changed, though, is the top-heavy staffing levels carried by virtually all councils.
Birmingham continues to employ about 41,000 non-schools staff, even though city council services are continually being handed to outside operators.
With a 10 per cent vacancy turnover each year it ought to be possible to trim the size of the workforce and save money by doing so.
The city council's business transformation programme, which is supposed to produce £1 billion through efficiency savings, is based in part on cutting jobs although politicians have, perhaps understandably, never spelt out exactly how many posts will go.
If the austerity years promised by a Conservative government come to pass - and even a re-elected Labour party will have to slash public spending - councils like Birmingham may find themselves shedding jobs at a far faster rate than they anticipated.

Will a Conservative Government be the Age of the Blogger?

2009-10-06T09:03:28Z

Amidst all the talk about raising pension ages and fixing the economy, Conservatives have thrown out some interesting ideas for making government more open, at their Manchester conference.

These include a public consultation stage for new laws - after a Bill's second reading in the Commons but before it goes into committee stage, when amendments are drawn up - allowing the public to suggest changes

This will all be done online.

The Tories also plan to cut back on inspections of local authorities, and instead tell councils to publish every item of spending above £500 online.

The idea would be to replace the top-down accountability that exists at the moment with a bottom-up regime, where residents are able directly to scrutinise what their councils are doing.

While the aim is to let individuals get more involved in government, there will also be a role for mainstream media and bloggers in making sense of it all and providing forums for debate.

Of course, it also means there is a danger that people without internet access will be excluded from parts of the democratic process.

Sion Simon Speaks on Digital Britain, Internet Piracy and That Cameron Spoof

2009-10-01T16:23:48Z

Older members of the Government might not understand the "nuts and bolts" on the internet, but they understand that it's important, according to Creative Industries Minister Sion Simon.

I tried something new when I interviewed Mr Simon, the MP for Birmingham Erdington, during Labour's conference this week.

Instead of picking the questions myself, I worked with website Yoosk.com, which allows the public to suggest the questions they want politicians to answer.

Yoosk is a funded partly by the taxpayer through Advantage West Midlands, and by Channel Four through it's 4iP fund.

Topics raised by questioners includes the Government's "Digital Britain" strategy, which aims to promote digital industries and get broadband internet access into every home, and the Government's planned crackdown on internet piracy, which has been criticised by local Labour MP Tom Watson (Lab West Bromwich East) among others.

Here's what Mr Simon had to say:

It's Not True to Claim the Tories Want to "Do Nothing"

2009-09-30T08:47:54Z

I think we gave Gordon Brown's speech a reasonably warm reaction in today's Post. It did contain some interesting ideas, including reforms which might save post office branches from closure and a promise that the elderly will no longer need to sell their homes to pay for care (although Labour's account of how this will be paid for is laughable).

But clearly, not everyone agrees. In today's Sun, even the page three girl says she supports David Cameron now.

What I failed to mention in today's Post is the propaganda film which preceded the great leader's speech.

Shown on a big screen in the conference hall, this gave Labour credit for "18 UK Oscar winners in the past four years" and the "best Olympic performance for 100 years".
More seriously perhaps, Labour's message all week has been that the Conservatives wanted to "do nothing" about the recession.

This is based largely on comments made by Stratford MP John Maples in the Commons, when he said the recession must be allowed to "run its course" - a phrase you'll sometimes hear repeated by Labour figures.

The problem is that Labour suggests David Cameron or George Osborne said this
.
That's simply untrue.

Mr Maples has an important internal role in the Conservative Party overseeing the selection of new candidates. But he's a backbencher, and doesn't decide economic policy (he also apologised for his comment a week after making it).

It was actually the Conservatives who first suggested the Government should make cash available to firms like JLR. Their shadow business minister Mark Prisk said this in an interview the Post carried last year.

His use of the phrase "bail out" probably went down like a lead balloon, but the intention was clear. Conservative policy for a long time has been that the Government should set up a national loan guarantee scheme, which they say would get credit flowing to businesses.

This may be a good idea or it may be a lousy one, but it's not the same as doing nothing. When the Tories kick off their own conference next week, here's hoping we at least get some better propaganda.

Brown Needs a Big Idea to Lead Fightback

2009-09-29T12:20:21Z

Heading off to hear Gordon Brown's speech very soon - the big news, briefed in advance, includes plans to expand childcare, crack down on anti-social behaviour and protect post offices from closure.

It's all worthy stuff, but doesn't sound likely to grab people's imagination. How often have we heard pledges to tackle anti-social behaviour or expand childcare from Labour? They are important issues, but hardly seem like policies to fight back from the brink and win an election on.

The proposal for a "people's bank" at the Post Office is at least new, and saving post offices will probably be popular. The "people's bank" phrase won't actually appear in the speech (apparently it is owned by an Irish bank and can't be used by Mr Brown for legal reasons).

But I'm told there is another "big story" in the speech that has not been leaked in advance. We'll see.

That Black Country Accent isn't Easy

2009-09-29T12:12:31Z

You learn something new at every party conference.

This year, it was the admission from West Bromwich West MP Adrian Bailey that, despite ten years in the job, he still has problems understanding the Black Country accent.

He sometimes has to ask his wife to translate for him, he told a fringe meeting.

Mandelson's Still Spinning after Jaguar Land Rover Announces Factory Closure

2009-09-24T16:47:39Z

Peter Mandelson is determined to look on the bright side after Jaguar Land Rover announced it was shutting one of its two West Midlands plants.

I had the chance to question him at a small press conference, where he was trumpeting the Government's work supporting the economy in the regions (ie, outside London).

The Business Secretary said how pleased he was that JLR had confirmed it was committed to keeping its Merseyside plant open.

I put it to him that while the announcement was good news for Merseyside, it would mean job losses in the West Midlands.

In response, he repeatedly insisted that he could not speculate on announcements that JLR had not yet made.

I'm sorry, but while we don't yet know all the details, it seems to me that closing a major factory (JLR apparently haven't decided whether it will be the Castle Bromwich or Solihull site) and creating 800 new jobs in Merseyside can only be a disaster for our region.

Those 800 jobs in the north west can only mean 800 jobs will go in the West Midlands - and probably more. The idea, after all, is to save money, not to create new jobs.

And while it's great that JLR have said there will be no compulsory redundancies, this does imply that positions will be lost in other ways, probably by not replacing staff who leave voluntarily.

Lord Mandelson has done a great job representing Labour lately. When he's on the telly, he sounds confident, knows what he's talking about and is never at a loss for words.

But his refusal to accept that JLR's announcement is another blow for the West Midlands region shows that beneath his new "pussycat" exterior, the great spinner still lurks.

Tax Rich People, Not Expensive Homes

2009-09-21T15:46:49Z

Liberal Democrats are proposing a new property tax on homes worth more than £1 million.

Vince Cable, their Treasury spokesman who has become something of a national treasure himself, stresses that this would be a "small annual levy" of half a penny in the pound.

If I've got my maths right, that's £5,000 a year.

I don't really understand property taxes. Making the most wealthy pay more sounds reasonable enough, but if that's the aim then why not simply tax people on their incomes?

The trouble with taxing property values is that they may have little connection to how wealthy the householder really is.

If you can afford to buy a home for £1 million, then it's a safe bet you're not short of a bob or two, even if it involved a hefty mortgage.

But there are people who are not rich at all, but have simply stayed in the same home they bought 20 or 30 years ago and watched the value of their property shoot up.

In theory, anyone who owns a property worth £1 million is extremely wealthy.

In practice, of course, they can't get their hands on the cash unless they sell it.

And if you've lived in the same place for most of your life, possibly raising a family there, that may be the last thing you want to do.

Admittedly, this is more of a problem in the south east, where property prices reached ridiculous levels before the credit crunch.

But not everyone who lives in an expensive home in Solihull or Sutton Coldfield is going to have £5,000 a year to spare. And they should not be forced to move home simply because the property market spun out of control in the years since they moved in.

Nick Clegg's laughable claims damage Liberal Democrats

2009-09-16T10:16:14Z

Liberal Democrats are sometimes accused of cynically manipulating politics in order to gain power.
It's said that the party's representatives at Westminster and on local councils will promise people in one street or neighbourhood one thing, while setting out exactly the opposite policy a few yards down the road. Anything to get elected, seems to be the watchword.

While this image may be exaggerated in some cases, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has hardly helped his party's image by issuing a number of, frankly, risible comments and claims when asked to comment on the political situation in Birmingham -
His suggestion that the Tory-Lib Dem coalition running the city council since 2004 inherited huge levels of debt from the previous Labour administration is complete nonsense. It did not. It could not have since the government did not begin to allow councils to get hold of more money under the prudential borrowing scheme until after 2004.
The fact is that council debt has more than doubled in the five year's since Mr Clegg's party got its hands on the tiller in Birmingham.
Mr Clegg cannot successfully distanceLiberal Democrats from the city council's alarming £2.4 billion debt, which is the equivalent of £2,000 for every man, woman and child in the city. The Liberal Democrats must take equal responsibility with the Tories for pushing through a number of high-cost projects including the library, the Olympic pool, the pay and grading review, elderly person's care homes and council housing improvements.
Some of these schemes were to be partly paid for by selling land and property, but the recession put paid to that.
As for Mr Clegg's attempt to attract votes by committing a Liberal Democrat government (no chance of this happening, then) to cut the pay of any local government official earning more than £100,000 by 25 per cent, this kind of thing might go down very well in lounge bars across England but it would prove very difficult and hugely expensive to achieve in practice.
If any government were to attempt such a thing it would be interesting to work out additional costs in terms of buying out contracts, compensation, redundancies and early retirement. The country's town hall high-earners would be laughing all the way to the bank.