Like every local authority, Birmingham City Council is under huge pressure to save money. It also needs to be mindful of the (on the face of it) radical devolution of power that is promised in the government’s Localism Bill, set to be passed at the end of next year. A report will be presented to the Cabinet Member on Monday which attempts to address these two issues, with the subsequent consultation exercise running concurrently with a Scrutiny Review on similar lines. Both will report back to the Executive at the beginning of November, but whatever happens, it seems unlikely that the constituency based model will continue in its present form.
The suggested proposal (though the report makes very clear that the Executive has ‘not yet formed a view on the preferred approach’) appears to be for a ‘lift and shift’ of delegations and executive powers from Constituency Committees to the central directorates. So, responsibility for running community libraries, for example, would shift from a devolved constituency level to the Cabinet Member for Leisure, Sport and Culture. The report suggests that this could save £1.5m and that although power would be going back to the centre, a strong ‘influencing and accountability role’ would be retained by Ward, Constituency and …. Area Committees.
These Area Committees, which don’t yet exist, would be based on the city’s Local Policing Units and broken down into four areas: Birmingham North, West & Central, East and South. Sutton Coldfield, for example, would form an Area with Erdington. Ward Committees would be ‘retained and expanded’, and, it is hoped, Community Chest funding would continue to be made available.
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