Birmingham City Council has welcomed a government-backed review into the city’s problems – but warned that it must be the last of a series of inquiries into what has gone wrong at the local authority.
Mark Rogers, the authority’s chief executive, warned that further investigations could make it harder for the city to tackle problems such as failing children’s services, and to meet the challenge of dramatically cutting its budget – which is expected to fall by £361 million between 2015 and 2018.
Speaking to the Birmingham Post, he pointed out that the city has been the subject of a range of inquiries by the Government and official inspectors in the past year.
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The latest and most wide-ranging was commissioned by local Government Secretary Eric Pickles and is led by Sir Bob Kerslake, the former head of the civil service.
It was prompted partly by the Trojan Horse affair, when the council was accused of turning a blind eye to attempts by a group of school governors to impose a strict religious ethos on schools.
Mr Pickles was also concerned about Birmingham’s inability to improve its child protection services and its poor finances, caused partly by the need to pay compensation to thousands of female workers who were paid less than men for similar work.
But Sir Bob is also to examine other areas of the council’s work which have not had the same level of scrutiny.
Other investigations have included an inquiry last autumn by the Local Government Association into Birmingham’s children’s services. Academic Julian Le Grand also led an inquiry into children’s services, commissioned by the Government, and there was a separate investigation by Ofsted.
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There were two inquiries into the Trojan Horse allegations, one commissioned by the Government and the other by the council, and Sir Bob’s review is expected to begin in earnest next month when he visits the city along with a panel including senior managers and councillors from other parts of the country.
Mr Rogers said he and council leader Sir Albert Bore welcomed the inquiry, but added: “We hope that Bob Kerslake’s review is the end of this type of serial examination of the organisation, so that everyone who has felt the need to come and look at Birmingham has had a look at us, they’ve given us some recommendations and then we can get on and do what we need to do.
“Come January next year Sir Albert and I just need to be concentrating on the main task of getting children’s services to improve, sort child safeguarding out, sort any fall-out still from Trojan Horse, and then clearly we’ve got to keep our eyes on the economy.
“And then of course we’ve got to draw up a budget by April. There’s a big task about downsizing the organisation, reconfiguring the way we do business and spending considerably less money”. He added: “So we need this review to be the end of the continual reviewing of Birmingham, so that we can do stuff.”
The review would highlight specific failings and suggest general changes that could be made to the way the council operates, he said. The review could potentially conclude that the council is too large or that the city should re-consider the case for a directly-elected mayor, he said.
Speaking to the Birmingham Post, Sir Bob warned there was a perception that Birmingham was failing to reach its full potential.
He said: “Trojan Horse raised issues around the wider governance of Birmingham as a council.
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“Birmingham is a truly great city. I love the city and have done for a long time. And equally, you can see some really big and important things that have happened in Birmingham.
“But I think there’s quite a widespread view that Birmingham over a period of 10 or maybe even 20 years has flatlined. It hasn’t matched its potential. And the question is, why?
“So the purpose of the review is to go beyond Trojan Horse to look at the governance, the way the council is run. To look at what could change.”