Council audit Unions query Birmingham's bankruptcy as public inquiry demanded

Politicians in Birmingham have called for council cuts, thought to be the biggest in local authority history, to be halted or scaled back over concerns the council's financial crisis might have been overstated.

- Jessica Murray

Birmingham City Council is planning to make £300m in savings and sell assets worth £750m before April 2026 after issuing a section 114 notice, in effect declaring bankruptcy, in September last year.

There are concerns, however, that the council does not have a clear picture of its financial situation, and that proposed cuts are based on potentially inaccurate data.

This week a report from the Audit Reform Lab, at the University of Sheffield, commissioned by the Unite, Unison and GMB trade unions, said: "Cuts and asset sales were progressed in a context of uncertainty around the quality of financial information used to justify these interventions." It concluded that the council's financial problems were attributed to a "prematurely disclosed and potentially overstated" equal-pay claim liability of £760m that "remains speculative and unaudited". The report found cuts were pushed through with "little public consultation" under "statutory direction", and would probably lead to "cost spirals and worsening outcomes for the city".