Phillipa Webster explains the reasoning behind tomorrow’s planned protest at Birmingham Council House.
You are invited to witness Sir Albert’s day of shame on Tuesday 3rd December – from 2pm onwards in the Public Gallery of Birmingham Council Chamber, Council House, entrance via Chamberlain Square.
On Tuesday afternoon Sir Albert Bore, Leader of Birmingham City Council, will present a motion to the December Council meeting endorsing his ‘Stand up for Birmingham’ campaign. This initiative is all about dismantling Council services when he should be standing up to the Con-Dem Government.
Bore is proposing to hand over many of Birmingham’s services to the community, voluntary and private sectors and to replace paid Council workers with unpaid volunteers. Be there to witness the shame of the city’s idealogically (and ideas) bereft Labour Group as they move forward to implement yet more Con-Dem cuts in the 2014-15 financial year.
Hang your head Sir Albert!
Councillors Sir Albert Bore and his Deputy, Ian Ward, have given notice of the following motion:-
“This Council fully supports the Standing up for Birmingham campaign as a way of responding to the financial crisis faced by local government. Standing up for Birmingham is about coming together as a city to tackle this challenge with unity and a sense of purpose.
Birmingham already has a rich and diverse range of community and voluntary organisations and social enterprises delivering high quality services. The Standing up for Birmingham campaign will give residents and organisations further opportunity to contribute by taking over council services and assets or by identifying other opportunities of contributing to the wellbeing of the city and local neighbourhoods.”
We say that council services should be run by the Council in a way that meets the needs of the citizens of Birmingham and funded via the Council Tax and other sources of Council income, rather than outsourced to the private sector (who invariably reduce the levels and quality of service in order to make a profit). Last year Capita made a profit of £58 million on their contract with BCC, and recently it was revealed that the same company was charging £1.2 million to build the website for the Library of Birmingham, and £190,000 per annum to run it. The PR for the opening of the library itself cost £300,000 and was undertaken by the private sector even though BCC has it’s own press department.
