Review finds former leader had no power to agree bin strike deal

An independent review into the council's handling of the 2017 bin strike has found that the then leader, John Clancy, did not have the authority to agree the deal that briefly ended the dispute.

The review, published on 20 December, looked at whether proper and lawful processes were followed when an agreement to end the industrial action was reached in August 2017.

The key findings

The review concluded that Cllr Clancy did not have the authority or power to enter into the agreement set out in a statement from the conciliation service Acas on 15 August 2017.

It also found that an "informal" meeting of the cabinet on 18 August 2017, which appeared to ratify the deal, had no effect, because the cabinet had no power to make such a decision.

The reviewers said the council had failed to accept the "norms of decision making", and that in 2017 the day-to-day governance of how a council ought to be run was "missing" or "distorted". They also found that issues around governance first identified in the Kerslake report in 2014 remained in 2017.

The report says the council should consider whether there are grounds for action against a councillor for misconduct and misfeasance in public office, and whether there may have been breaches of the councillors' code of conduct. It also calls for a review of the rules on how councillors and officers work together.

No legal action

The council has taken advice from an independent QC, who concluded that there was no merit in pursuing either civil or criminal proceedings. However, the matter has been referred to the independent chair of the council's standards committee, who will decide whether any further action is needed.

How the dispute unfolded

The dispute began after the cabinet decided on 27 June 2017 to reorganise the waste service, including removing 113 Grade 3 "leading hand" posts. Bin workers went on strike, leaving rubbish piling up in streets across the city through the summer.

On 15 August, Acas announced that an agreement had been reached that included keeping the Grade 3 posts, and the industrial action was suspended. But the deal quickly unravelled, the strike resumed, and the dispute went on to the High Court. Cllr Clancy resigned as leader in September 2017.

"Learning from what happened"

Robert Connelly, the council's deputy monitoring officer, said the council was committed to learning the lessons. "We are absolutely committed to learning from what happened during the summer of 2017 and we have already put a range of measures in place to make our governance and decision making more robust," he said.

He said the induction programme for councillors had been reviewed and revised for those elected in May 2018, and that the findings would be built into training for both councillors and officers.

Since April 2018, the council has made a series of improvements to its governance, which are monitored monthly by the Birmingham Independent Improvement Panel and the government. The council says it will provide further updates when they are available.