Your questions answered

If you have questions about the future of Birmingham City Council, admin@birminghamnewsroom.com. We’ll try to get an answer to you as quickly as possible.

Q) It’s completely clear that times are a changing and ever quicker … what future scenarios/assumptions are the council working with as part of it’s future planning and resourcing, say 5 years down the line? I mean for how it operates itself. Just a series of brief bullet points will suffice.

A) We know the world is changing – for the council, the city and everyone who lives and works here.

Our challenge over the next five years will be to:

  • Protect the most vulnerable and prioritise those most in need – empower individuals and communities and challenge inequality
  • Reduce dependency, prevent need and create opportunity
  • Promote diversity and spread power more widely – within this we need to encourage individuals, communities, organisations and businesses to take greater responsibility for contributing to the wider good
  • Develop a much better understanding of the needs of the various communities we serve and embrace change and innovation to achieve better outcomes
  • All set within the context of a budget that will be reduced from what we have today (c.£250m less)

As part of the thinking behind the council of the future we have agreed some basic principles:

  • Target our resources on our key priorities
  • Focus on preventing future demand while managing current demand
  • Promote the independence of our citizens
  • Talk to, listen to and work with citizens and community goups
  • Operate at three levels – regional (e.g. introduction of a combined authority), city and local
  • We will not assume that the council will be the direct deliverer of services
  • We will have a flexible and adaptable workforce
  • We will operate in a way that aligns with our values

We’ll build on the themes above over the coming weeks and months so please stay tuned for updates and thanks for your interest.

If you have questions about the future of Birmingham City Council, admin@birminghamnewsroom.com. We’ll try to get an answer to you as quickly as possible.

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