You Ask Us: Why are so many councils going bust?
The New Statesman | UK politics and culture
The New Statesman
4.4 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 15 September 2023
⏱️ 18 minutes
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Summary
Since being recently surpassed by India, Britain has the world's sixth largest economy. But, one listener asks, how do we square this position with the reality of our crumbling services? And on the subject of government funding, another listener asks: will Birmingham City Council's financial crisis will make Labour more weary of devolving power to local authorities?
Anoosh Chakelian, Rachel Wearmouth, and Freddie Hayward, answer listener questions.
Read more from Anoosh on Thurrock Council's bankruptcy and the West Country's disappearing bus routes
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Anouche. I'm Rachel. And I'm Freddie. And this is the New |
| 0:11.0 | Statesman's Politics Podcast. This is an episode we like to call you Ask Us. |
| 0:14.9 | Hello, I'm Anouche Shekelian, Britain Editor of the New Statesman and |
| 0:25.1 | Host of this podcast. And joining me in the studio, I have Rachel Wermouth, |
| 0:28.5 | Deputy Political Editor and Freddie Hayward, Political Correspondent. |
| 0:31.6 | They've been digging around in our mailbag for your questions and each of them |
| 0:35.1 | have brought one for us to discuss. So, Rachel, which one did you go for? |
| 0:38.1 | Right, so this is a question from Dan who asks, do you think Birmingham City |
| 0:42.4 | Council's recent Section 114 notice will mean Labour will be more wary of |
| 0:48.1 | devolving power to local authorities? Okay, interesting question. So for any |
| 0:53.6 | readers who haven't been following this story, this is the effective bankruptcy |
| 0:57.0 | of Birmingham City Council. That's what a Section 114 notice means. |
| 1:01.0 | Councils can't actually go bankrupt because they have to deliver certain |
| 1:04.1 | services as their statutory duty, but it means that it gets stripped down to |
| 1:08.9 | basic spending, commissioners come in to help them run it and, you know, they're |
| 1:13.3 | basically in dire financial straits. And this is the second biggest council in |
| 1:16.2 | Europe. This is a really big deal. England's second city. It's quite |
| 1:19.6 | extraordinary that this would happen. What's happened here is slightly |
| 1:23.0 | specific to Birmingham, but there's all sorts of other councils that have been |
| 1:25.8 | going bankrupt recently lately as well. What's happened in Birmingham is they've |
| 1:29.6 | got this outstanding £760 million bill for equal pay claims, and this was |
| 1:33.8 | after an equal pay case was won back in 2012. And actually the ongoing |
... |
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