Yardley Constituency Committee was the predicted quiet affair.

We did get the latest financial report which shows an end of year deficit of £313k to carry forward to next year – or rather the next three years as it will be paid back in thirds over the next three years. This isn’t ideal but its much better than the figure we were on course for at the mid year point. It reflects the difficult decisions taken in the second half of the year as well as some pretty tough lobbying for a fairer deal for constituencies within the overall Council budget. Yardley’s deficit is pretty well bang in line with the average of all 10 Birmingham constituencies – which between them had a carried forward deficit of £3.162m at year end. By far the worst year end balance was in Labour controlled Erdington, which ended the year with a whopping £1.025m deficit. While I don’t know all the ins and outs of their situation, the size of their deficit is a very poor indication of the ability of the Labour councillors in Erdington to take the difficult decisions, which all politicians worth their salt have to take from time to time. And it was hardly a one off – the other two constituencies with deficits of over half a million were Labour controlled Perry Barr and Labour controlled Ladywood. 

Councillor Penny Wagg was also at the Committee meeting and it was good to see that she finally has the bandages off both her fingers, that were badly mauled by a dog a month or so ago. It was a very nasty injury and her fingers are clearly still very stiff, but happily she is well on the road to recovery.