Return of full council control could be 'three years away'

COMMISSIONER PRAISES PROGRESS AT CRISIS-HIT AUTHORITY BUT WARNS BINS DISPUTE HAS BROUGHT ADDED PRESSURES

- JANE HAYNES News Reporter

Striking bin workers this week. Right, lead commissioner Tony McArdle

GOVERNMENT commissioners are to stay in charge at Birmingham City Council beyond next year’s May local elections.

A progress report from new lead commissioner Tony McArdle to the Local Government Minister Alison McGovern, published this week, sets out his ambition to create an “exit plan” that allows council officers and its political leaders to gradually take back control.

But that could potentially be three years down the line, he warned.

It means whoever takes control of the council next May will have to work alongside the commissioners.

The risks posed by a “churn of councillors” and a potential change in political leadership after the local elections appears to have discouraged hopes of a more rapid departure of the commissioners.

The impact of the bins strike has also been a major problem that has slowed transformation of the waste service and dented the council's forward momentum.

There has also been slow progress over “governance and culture” changes, while the persistent equal pay issue also poses continued challenges, he added.

McArdle, who took over from Max Caller last autumn, said he had found the council “is not yet fully functioning as a coherent corporate entity” with change not yet embedded and recovery still “fragile”. But he praised the important progress made in multiple areas of the council’s work.

Among the positives highlighted in his progress report were: