It has taken four months just to plan the route. Lib Dems respond to Labour inaction

In his opening remarks, Cllr Cotton dismissed the section 114 and section 5 notices to the history books. Wholly Ironic, given that both notices were issued as a direct result of inaction on his part and on the part of the Birmingham Labour group.

Going into the meeting, the understanding was that all councillors were voting for “option 4”, whereby job evaluation would be put out to an external, impartial organisation, yet Cllr Cotton announced a last-minute agreement with the unions, meaning that “option 2” was back on the table. Option 2 being to use Gauge with a degree of union involvement.

Only then, an email sent to councillors from a union representative declared that option 2 was not on the table. In their words, it was option 3b: job evaluation with significant union involvement. A point of order was raised, and a break was called giving people time to digest the few facts that were available.

Cllr Roger Harmer, who has been calling for a solution to “stop the bleed” responded to the self-congratulatory applause that Labour awarded themselves after this eleventh hour announcement:

“I welcome a solution, but this is not something that you should be proud of. This is happening last minute, 4 months after crisis broke, 6 years after strikes that led to this crisis. This is better than no agreement but it’s not a sign of a good organisation and not something to be applauded.

“Getting this agreed, it’s like agreeing a route from Birmingham to Beijing. Agreeing the route isn’t getting it done….in 2017 you couldn’t square the circle, and that’s the difficult point…..it’s about unpicking the 2017 deal and replacing it with something that is fair.

“Even if it all gets sorted, we are still left with £750 million or as the auditor says, over £1 billion. There will still be the sale of assets, the rise in council tax, the reduction in services.”

The group voted in favour. The council now have 10 days to sign an agreement with unions. If this doesn’t work, external job evaluation will be the automatic default position and will be implemented with no further delay.