It’s just over 18 months since Government troubleshooter Lord Bob Kerslake dropped his bombshell report on Birmingham City Council – and its implications are still being felt today.

His findings that the immense bureaucracy does not handle change well, that it does not work well with outsiders and that there is widespread confusion over roles and responsibilities – particularly the dividing line between elected councillors and the full time officials – came as little surprise to anyone who had a passing association with Britain’s largest local authority.

An ultimate consequence was the replacement of council leader Sir Albert Bore following relentless criticism from the Government-appointed independent panel overseeing the authority’s journey to improvement.

The panel is currently resting after being largely satisfied earlier this year that enough progress had been demonstrated by chief executive Mark Rogers and the new leader John Clancy.

But it will be back in September to see how things are going – and councillors are already getting nervous.

Not least because they were this week handed a report on the relationships between elected members, officers and outside partner agencies which suggests very little has changed since 2014.

The research, carried out by the University of Birmingham’s Public Service Academy is dated February 2016 but has only now found its way into the inboxes of councillors – just as many are mentally already on the summer holiday beach.

John Clancy, the new leader of Birmingham City Council
John Clancy, the new leader of Birmingham City Council

It found that effective working relationships were impeded by hierarchies within the council – including the age and gender of the councillor and the grade and experience of the officer.

And that many, particularly older members and officials, struggled to adapt to new ways of working. It said: “A softer set of skills will be needed in future, including listening, learning from others and engaging with residents in a variety of ways.”

Backbench councillors, who Kerslake said needed to play a bigger leadership role in their communities, were particularly out of the loop compared to their more senior colleagues.

The researchers found a “you don’t need to know” culture.

One councillor told them: “Backbenchers are the last to know. The administration keep people in the dark and we find out from the press.”

On the other side they found their views were not considered important by officers.

It was also found there were in many cases a lack of respect on all sides – with some councillors talking down to officials, while others complained officials showed a lack of respect to councillors.

Incredibly, some cabinet members were found to have avoided appearing before scrutiny committees, leaving officers to face the music in a forum likened to a ‘kangaroo court’ by some.

Surprisingly, it found better relationships existed in the lower reaches of the organisation, such as councillors and officers working together on local district issues.

While between councillors there are major generational issues, with older members struggling with IT, social media and emails while younger members adapted more easily to more informal and collaborative ways of working.

Younger officials complained of being intimidated by councillors and put under pressure. Some councillors are “exceptionally rude to officers” they told researchers.

More worryingly there was found to be a “culture of deference” where people do as they are told by those higher up, rather than allowed to act as a critical friend, point out flaws in a plan or challenge policy.

Turning round a major bureaucracy with ingrained systems and processes was always going to be difficult, but the Government handed over £4.4 million and new managers were brought in to ensure this happened without hitting day-to-day services.

However, it seems that after months of so-called ‘improvement’ a significant number of people are still not feeling the change. Wonder what the panel will make of that when they return in September.

Doubling up on devolution

A recent change of council leader Clancy’s is the appointment of four council allies, sorry locally engaged members, as assistant leaders. It is their job to sort out devolution in the city and enable the behemoth which is Birmingham City Council to pass funding and responsibility down to communities and local councillors. So far, the tendency has been to pay lip service to localism as the centralising force remains too strong.

But already his appointments have come under fire as the four are being paid £10,000 each. It has been rightly pointed out that there are already ten district committee chairmen who are supposed to be looking after devolution.