Thursday's Cabinet-property meeting was suspended as the required number of Labour members to be quorate failed to attend. With both the Leader and the Cabinet Member for finance missing for the crunch meeting, Labour needed to find just one from seven other Cabinet Members to substitute for them, to allow the meeting to proceed under the rules set out in the constitution. The Cabinet Property sub-committee was created to speed up the process of disposing of assets in order to meet the urgent need to raise cash to meet Labour’s self-inflicted equal pay crisis. The committee has now met just once since it was created in December following the cancellation of the previous meeting and now the lack of attendance from Labour derailing the one schedule for today (29 February).
Birmingham Labour spent much of the summer of 2023 ignoring calls from the opposition and media to act on the growing financial crisis at Birmingham City Council. Opposition councillors repeatedly called for Labour to take the crisis more seriously and to get a grip of equal pay and start the process of identifying ways to fill their financial black hole. Failing to do so, the council issued a S114, effectively declaring itself bankrupt. A fire sale of assets was highlighted as part of a potential solution, with a target set of £750 million from the sale of property over the next two years. Despite this, not one of nine cabinet members other than the Deputy Leader felt able to make today’s meeting of Cabinet-Property – despite both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat sending a representative. This follows the most previous meeting having been cancelled.
Cllr Ewan Mackey (Con, Sutton Roughley), Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Birmingham Local Conservatives, who attended the abandoned meeting, said
“This just shows once again that Labour simply isn’t taking the financial crisis at Birmingham City Council seriously. Residents would be within their rights to ask what exactly it was that was more important than fixing the council’s financial problems that meant they could not find just one cabinet member out of a possible nine who was willing to attend. Everyone understands that unexpected things can come up from time to time, but that is why the meeting was set up to allow substitutes. Opposition Councillors and Council Officers made an effort to attend this important meeting, as they understood the urgency with which the council needs to act. Labour chose not to. Time and time again, they make choices which hurt residents by either choosing not to act, or by acting in a way that makes the situation even worse. It simply isn’t fair, the very least residents deserve is councillors who make the effort to attend meetings.”