An article in yesterday’s Birmingham Post reported that Birmingham City Council was holding a “a nest egg of £71.4million”.
This figure was an estimate previously produced by the council of its reserve levels.
The actual position at the close of last year was £79million and of this only £11.4million was not earmarked for specific purposes.
This must be seen in the context of Birmingham City Council’s annual expenditure of some £3.6billion.
The council needs to retain relatively modest reserves so that it has scope to deal with any unforeseen circumstances.
In any event these resources could only be used on a one-off basis and, even if we were to use them all, would only amount to around a third of our anticipated savings requirement in the first year of the Comprehensive Spending Review.
We continue to look at all opportunities to achieve these future savings but using our reserves cannot, in themselves solve the funding position.
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