This week we're in Birmingham where last year the City Council announced that it was effectively bankrupt.

Birmingham is officially broke. Services for more than 1.1 million people are now under threat.

As well as years of austerity, the main reasons for this were the cost of providing equal pay

claims and new IT system and financial mismanagement.

The scale of the resulting cuts is truly eye-watering,

300 million pounds over two years with more still to come.

And Birmingham is not the only English local authority on the brink.

What will happen if Rachel Reeves fails to significantly help councils in her budget next week?

I'm John Harris and you're listening to Politics Weekly UK for The Guardian. We're outside the HQ of Birmingham City Council, the biggest local authority in Western Europe,

and we're surrounded by really grand civic buildings.

These huge imposing Victorian structures that really speak volumes

about a level of confidence you know the idea that this is was a really significant important place

I would imagine in the offices here a lot of what they're going to be thinking about right now is about the budget and what Rachel Reeves is or isn't going to do to help this city and plenty of other places which are in a similar predicament.

Although Birmingham's position is really, really awful.

Last year the City Council issued what's called a Section 114 notice which is effectively a declaration of

bankruptcy and in March this year the City Council put through completely eye-watering

cuts of 300 million pounds over two years.

Now what that means is clear.

Street lights are going to be dimmed.

Bin collections are going to become fortnightly.

There are increases in burial costs. Most viscerally, this city is already in the

midst of huge spending cuts to adult social care, children services, museums, libraries, culture.

...