Bin Strikes: Should bin collection services be nationalised?

Ongoing bin strikes across Birmingham have meant Brummies have been faced with the issue of rubbish mounting up on their doorstep.

Transcript

00:00Well there's no doubt that sort of Birmingham City Council need to save money.

00:07To give the sort of the explanation on this it's quite clearly sort of it will save money

00:11but this results from sort of the last bin strike which was in 2017 and it was actually

00:17sort of negotiated by the sort of then council leader as a way if you like of sort of ending

00:21that strike and a sort of specialist safety worker was created, it's estimated something

00:25like 80 jobs were sort of made you know became sort of impossible as a consequence of this

00:32but you know they're paid an extra £8,000 so the sort of the argument goes but of course

00:37that on its own is well it could be seen as a problem but of course what it's also about

00:42is the sort of equal pay. Well public services are paid for by the public. Now of course how

00:48that sort of money gets from us to the organisations whether it be the government or local government

00:54it's normally through taxation and council tax. Now of course what people are saying

00:59well I'm paying more in council tax, I'm paying more in sort of my general taxation, you know

01:03the services should be getting better. Of course the reality is that it's becoming a lot more

01:07expensive to deliver these services and indeed you know most particularly sort of services

01:13are sort of provided by councils and of course their budgets are shrinking as a consequence of

01:18less money coming in capital grant from the government which again comes through general taxation.

01:23Local authorities have a sort of a legal responsibility to provide statutory services and of course

01:29yeah that's things like special educational needs for children, social services, those sort of bills

01:34particularly in sort of urban authorities in the sort of big cities are going up because of course

01:39you know we live in a sort of more complex society than we sort of once did which means of course the

01:44amount of pie that they've got you know to use the sort of the Liz Trust analogy yeah it's only so big

01:49so to provide the sort of the other services becomes much more of a problem so and of course local

01:54authorities have less money anyway you know that's been cut back so they're trying to do sort of the

01:59same with less and indeed of course as a consequence you know the services then start to suffer.

02:05Residents in Birmingham have been advised to follow the council's advice when it comes to tackling their

02:11household rubbish. Advice on the Birmingham City Council's website states that residents should put their

02:17household waste out on their normal collection days if it's not collected it should be left out and

02:23it will be collected as soon as the authority is able.