Who Governs Birmingham: The People Or The Permanent Machine?

ITV Central and Lewis Warner have done Birmingham a public service. Now councillors of every party must do theirs.

Every so often local journalism does what local journalism is meant to do. It does not flatter power. It does not recycle press releases. It does not sit politely in the press box waiting for somebody important to pat it on the head. It digs. It checks. It broadcasts. It asks the awkward question at the exact moment the comfortable would rather move on to the weather. ITV News Central has done Birmingham a serious public service, and Lewis Warner deserves to be named and praised for fronting it with calm, forensic clarity. Lewis once worked around the same Birmingham television world in which I broadcast Olley’s Live, now Birmingham TV, and I make no apology for saying his work this week made many of us proud. This was proper local journalism. Evidence, interviews, challenge and consequence. Not noise. Not theatre. Not some bloke shouting at a ring light because the internet rewarded him with three angry emojis and a new follower.

The leaked document reported by ITV is not merely another grim chapter in Birmingham’s bin strike. It may prove to be one of the most constitutionally serious stories to emerge from this city in years. According to ITV, the confidential file was drawn up by senior Birmingham City Council officers in March and suggested that dismissing the striking workforce was the only certain way to bring the long running dispute to an end. ITV also reported that the document stated dismissal was the only option achieving all objectives to swiftly resolve the industrial action. That alone would be explosive. But the truly staggering part is what came next. ITV reported that the paper advised any dismissal should occur in a defined window immediately after the local elections but before a new administration formally took office. It further reported that this would allow the incoming administration to disown responsibility while benefiting from the resolution of the strike.

That is not ordinary industrial relations language. That is democratic alarm bell language. If those passages are accurate and fairly reflect the document, then this is no longer just a story about bins, pay, equal pay risk or union tactics. It becomes a story about power. It asks whether elected councillors were being treated as the democratic masters of the council, or as inconvenient decorations to be worked around when the permanent machine had made up its mind. The public are entitled to ask whether this is what Whitehall running Birmingham now means: Government appointed commissioners in the building, senior officers at the table, and elected representatives apparently treated as a problem to be managed rather than a mandate to be respected.

The Council’s response must be printed fairly, because that is how you protect the house and, more importantly, how you tell the truth properly. Managing Director Joanne Roney says the document does not recommend dismissal as the preferred option, that it is easy to cherry pick lines from a comprehensive paper, and that it was in no way intended to undermine or remove power from an incoming administration. Lead Commissioner Tony McArdle says good governance requires Cabinet members to be presented with all options, including pros and cons, and that officers should make recommendations on preferred courses. Those responses matter. They must be read. They must be weighed.

But they do not close the matter. They open the door to the next and more important set of questions. Who wrote the paper? Who drafted the language about the post election window? Who approved it? Who saw it? Who challenged it? Who stayed silent? What legal advice was sought? What role, if any, did commissioners play? What emails, meeting notes, messages, Teams chats, drafts and commissioner comments sit behind the final document? Birmingham should not need a leak to understand how Birmingham is being governed. It should not need ITV to prise open the cupboard before the public gets to see whether the civic crockery has been smashed.

This is where, the former Labour Leader of the city council John Cotton’s legacy needs a serious second look. I have been critical of him. I thought his handling of the bin strike looked too cautious, too quiet and too unwilling to take on the officer machine in public. But ITV’s reporting changes the frame. ITV says the document was presented to the then council leader in March. Cotton told ITV the proposals were outrageous and said there was no way he would countenance dismissal of the workforce. He also said the document read as though it was pushing towards one preferred outcome. If that account is right, then perhaps he was not simply weak in the face of the machine. Perhaps he was resisting something bigger than the public understood. Perhaps his error was not that he failed to stand firm, but that he failed to tell Birmingham loudly enough what he believed he was standing firm against.

That does not turn him into Churchill with a wheelie bin. Birmingham politics does not need more statues, and certainly not before breakfast. But it does mean those of us who judged him harshly may need to add a footnote. If Cotton was pushing back against officers and commissioners who were contemplating the sort of route ITV has now reported, then the story of his leadership is more complicated than it looked. He may still have been too quiet. He may still have failed to take the public with him. But quiet resistance is still resistance, and this city should be honest enough to recognise it when new evidence emerges.

Cllr Jex Parkin, leader of Reform UK group, put the democratic point with brutal simplicity. ITV quotes him saying councillors are elected for a reason and that officers proposing to take such significant decisions without consulting a newly formed administration would show flagrant disrespect to the democratic process. That is not just a Reform point. It is not a Labour point. It is not a Liberal Democrat, Green, Conservative or independent point. It is the point. Once unelected power begins to treat democratic authority as an obstacle to be handled, the subject matter becomes almost secondary. Today it may be bin workers. Tomorrow it may be care, libraries, planning, transport, equal pay, schools or the next huge decision affecting ordinary Birmingham families.

This is why all political groups now need to stop the usual municipal cage fight for five minutes and act together. Do not panic, normal service can resume soon enough. There will be plenty of time to blame each other for potholes, bins, budgets, roadworks and that mysterious council meeting where good ideas go to be embalmed. But first they need to defend the institution they were elected to serve. The people of Birmingham did not vote for commissioners. They did not vote for senior officers. They voted for councillors. Those councillors now need to remind the permanent machine that it is permanent only because democracy allows it to be.

A word directly to the Managing Director. If Joanne Roney genuinely believes in democratic accountability, now is the moment to prove it. Not with a soothing statement. Not with a carefully polished paragraph that has been through so many hands it needs its own pension. With action. Preserve every document. Preserve every draft. Preserve every email, message, meeting note, legal instruction, risk assessment, commissioner comment and circulation list. Provide the material to elected members under proper lawful arrangements. Publish on the Birmingham City Council website everything that can lawfully be published, with only strictly necessary redactions for legal privilege, personal data, whistleblower protection or live employment matters. If there has been no misconduct, publication and investigation will help clear the air. If there has been misconduct, the city must know and action must follow.

The Secretary of State cannot hide behind distance either. Commissioners are not local volunteers who wandered in from a church hall raffle. They are Government appointed. The official intervention gives commissioners powers over certain council functions including governance, finance and recruitment. That makes Government responsible for the framework under which they operate and for public confidence in their continued role. If commissioners were involved in, supportive of, or insufficiently challenging of any attempt to move a major decision away from elected control, Ministers need to know that and the public needs to know that. If they did nothing wrong, let them be cleared. If they did, remove them. The test is not whether they are important. The test is whether they still command confidence.

There is also a message here for the trade unions. Unite and UNISON have every right to be furious. ITV reported that the document acknowledged that dismissals would be automatically unfair under the Employment Rights Act 2025 and estimated financial exposure of up to £23 million, excluding legal costs and operational transition costs. If that is right, taxpayers and workers are entitled to ask why a route carrying such risk was even being entertained. The unions should demand the full paper trail. They should demand ministerial action. They should also ask why any Labour Government expects union confidence, never mind union money, while commissioners appointed through that Government’s machinery remain in place without urgent public scrutiny.

Most council officers are decent, hardworking public servants. They deal with impossible workloads, impossible inboxes and impossible political noise, including from columnists like me. This is not an attack on them. It is an invitation to them. I have been told privately that there may be more to this story. I cannot print what I cannot evidence, and I will not pretend otherwise. But if you are a Birmingham City Council officer who has seen things that troubled you, if you believe democracy matters, and if you believe the public deserves to understand how decisions were really being shaped, then contact Midlands GRIT in confidence. Your identity will not be published without your consent and your confidence will be protected to the fullest extent possible. Responsible whistleblowing is not betrayal. Sometimes it is public service in its purest form.

The public stocks are not literal, tempting though a medieval vegetable stall may feel after reading some of this. In modern democratic life, the proper stocks are publication, scrutiny, investigation and consequence. No rotten tomato can do what a properly drafted council resolution can do. And frankly, given the price of tomatoes, Birmingham deserves better value for money. That is why outrage alone is not enough. Birmingham now needs councillors to put a lawful instrument on the table and force the issue into the open.

ITV has opened the door. Birmingham’s councillors must now walk through it. Not as Labour. Not as Reform. Not as Liberal Democrats, Greens, Conservatives or independents. As elected representatives of the people. Once democracy is defended, by all means return to the tribal shouting. That is politics. Democracy can survive politicians arguing. It cannot survive politicians surrendering.

So here is the test. Do councillors want answers, or do they want to be managed? Do they want authority, or do they want briefing notes? Do they want to govern, or merely attend meetings while others govern around them?

Birmingham now needs a resolution, not a shrug.

Draft Resolution For Birmingham City Council

This Council notes the ITV News Central investigation into a leaked document concerning the Birmingham bin dispute, including reported references to dismissal of striking workers, the role of unelected officers and commissioners, and the suggested timing of action after local elections but before a new administration formally took office.

This Council further notes the public responses reported by ITV from Birmingham City Council Managing Director Joanne Roney and Lead Commissioner Tony McArdle, including their position that the document was comprehensive, that it was not intended to undermine an incoming administration and that the preferred option remained settlement.

This Council reaffirms that strategic decisions affecting large sections of the Council workforce, major industrial relations matters and decisions carrying significant political, legal and financial consequences must remain subject to democratic accountability.

This Council further reaffirms that officers advise, commissioners support lawful governance, but elected members hold the democratic mandate given by the people of Birmingham.

This Council declares that the public interest now requires urgent preservation, disclosure, investigation and publication of all material that can lawfully be released.

Accordingly, this Council resolves, through the Leader, Cabinet and all proper constitutional mechanisms available, to require the Managing Director, insofar as within her lawful authority, to:

1. Immediately preserve all documents, drafts, emails, electronic messages, meeting notes, diary entries, legal instructions, risk assessments, commissioner comments, officer comments, circulation records and related communications concerning the document reported by ITV News Central.

2. Within two working days, establish a dedicated page on Birmingham City Council’s website for publication of material relating to the document reported by ITV News Central and the Council’s response to it.

3. Publish on that dedicated page all relevant material that can lawfully be published, subject only to strictly necessary redactions for legal privilege, personal data, whistleblower protection, live employment matters or other clearly identified legal restriction.

4. Publish further relevant material on a rolling basis as soon as it is identified, obtained or reviewed, and in any event no later than two working days after it becomes available for lawful publication.

5. Where any document or part of a document is withheld or redacted, publish a disclosure log identifying, so far as lawfully possible, the type of document, date, author or originating body, recipient category, general subject matter, reason for withholding or redaction, and the date on which publication will next be reviewed.

6. Provide all relevant material to elected members under appropriate lawful and confidential arrangements as soon as practicable, beginning within two working days of this resolution being passed.

7. Provide unredacted material to elected members under appropriate lawful and confidential arrangements where public publication is not immediately possible.

8. Update elected members as further relevant material is identified, obtained or reviewed, so that disclosure is continuing rather than delayed until the end of any internal process.

9. Continue the rolling publication process until the independent investigation has concluded, Full Council has received the final report, and all lawfully publishable material has been placed on the dedicated website page.

10. Identify the author or authors of the document, all officers involved in drafting, amending, approving or circulating it, and all persons to whom it was sent or shown.

11. Commission an independent investigation, led by a person wholly unconnected with Birmingham City Council, the Commissioners or the bin dispute, into the preparation, circulation, purpose and handling of the document.

12. Ensure the terms of reference for that investigation are shared with group leaders before finalisation and include examination of officer conduct, commissioner involvement, legal advice, democratic accountability, public statements, internal communications and any inconsistency between internal documents and public statements.

13. Consider whether any officer should be suspended on full pay while the investigation takes place, where such action is lawful, proportionate and necessary to protect the integrity of the investigation.

14. Report the findings of the independent investigation to Full Council and publish those findings so far as lawfully possible.

This Council further resolves to request that the Managing Director write immediately to the Secretary of State seeking:

1. An independent review of the role of Commissioners in relation to the matters reported by ITV News Central.

2. Disclosure to that review of all relevant commissioner documents, messages, notes, correspondence and records.

3. A requirement that Commissioners provide all relevant material in their possession, custody or control to the independent review and, where lawfully publishable, to the dedicated Birmingham City Council website page on the same rolling basis.

4. Publication of that review so far as lawfully possible.

5. Consideration of whether any Commissioner found to have been involved in, supportive of, or failing properly to challenge any attempt to circumvent democratic accountability continues to command public confidence.

This Council declares that no officer or commissioner found by an independent investigation to have deliberately sought to circumvent democratic accountability should continue to hold responsibilities requiring the confidence of Birmingham’s elected members.

This Council further declares that Birmingham’s residents should not have to rely on leaks, rumours or journalistic excavation to understand how decisions of this magnitude were being considered in their name.