Alan Clawley has a message for Birmingham’s city councillors.
No person, company, local council, or financial institution, even in ‘advanced’ post-industrial societies like ours, can be good at everything. It’s plain for everyone to see that Birmingham City Council is no exception. Although its Leader would like a 3-star rating for every department, its obvious that some Council activities are brilliant whilst others are shamefully bad.
Task Force that restored Curzon Street Station 1983
For example, the Council’s work with Children and Young People is so poor that it had to be taken over by a government appointee. At the same time as the Council was failing to properly safeguard vulnerable children it successfully drove through a major construction project, the new Library of Birmingham, a technically advanced building that will be completed on time and within its £193 million budget.
Industry forms the foundations of the new Library
The big variation in skill and competence inside a single organisation illustrated here simply reflects society at large. The British have had centuries of practice at making things and selling them to the world. Fortunes were made in the West Midlands by making jewellery, toys, guns, bicycles, aero engines, tyres, and luxury cars. It’s what the people of the West Midlands, their leading citizens and their business people, are good at.
Council leaders seem to intuitively understand this, which may explain why they prefer practical projects with tangible outcomes, like building convention centres, indoor arenas, new libraries, installing wi-fi in the city centre, and creating a combined heat and power plant for the city centre. Some of their ideas, like reinventing the municipal bank and becoming a major supplier of gas and electricity may have worked in the pioneering days of Joseph Chamberlain when there was no other competition but are out of step with today’s conditions.
It’s understandable and only human for Council Leaders to want to stick to what they do best. Unfortunately for them, they are charged with other duties that call for soft skills. These unglamorous and largely invisible activities have been neglected with disastrous consequences. It is in the areas of social services, young people and education that the competence of the Council is sadly lacking.
How should they make up for their deficiencies?
First they need to spend less time and money doing what they find easy to do and concentrate their energy instead on activities that they find extremely difficult. This means foregoing the glory and public recognition that comes with highly visible prestige projects. Like musicians rehearsing a piece of music, they must work on their weak points, and not keep going over the passages they’re already good at.