Bin strike has cost council at least £14m

The disruption from the ongoing bins strike has cost Birmingham City Council at least £14 million, a report has revealed.

The industrial action year has seen heaps of rubbish dumped outside homes, pickets outside bin depots and angry outbursts during council meetings.

It is also inflicting further pain on the Labour-run council, which is currently trying to recover from a financial crisis after it declared itself effectively bankrupt back in 2023.

In a new report by the council’s director of finance Carol Culley, some of the costs of the strike for the council were laid bare.

“Up to the end of September, the direct costs of the dispute to date, including one-off costs, are £9.6m.” it said.

A previous report said such costs include street cleansing, extended opening hours for city tips and additional support to tackle the accumulation of waste.

The report went on to say that the cost of lost income from garden waste being suspended is estimated to be £4.4m.

“Residents have been reimbursed the payments for the garden waste service and it is unlikely that the service will be resumed within this financial year,” it said.

It is recommended that both the direct costs and loss of income from garden waste are met using the council’s reserves.

At the start of the financial year, the council held reserves balances of £971.4m – but this is forecast to drop to £891.5m by the end, partly due to the bins strike costs.

Only £156.2m (17.5 per cent) will be available for general use, with the rest set aside for specific committed purposes.

Government appointed commissioners, sent in to oversee the council’s recovery, warned that despite the reasonable level of reserves, the authority still faces “considerable risks” from equal pay and the Oracle reimplementation.

“This report highlights that reserves are decreasing by £80m in 2025/6, in part to finance the waste dispute,” they wrote.

“The council must continue to monitor and control reserves robustly.

“Chief officers are fully aware of these two key issues and commissioners will continue to monitor them closely.”

The report also confirmed the bins strike will also have an impact on the council’s ability to make savings by transforming the waste service – a crucial project which was pushed back.

It was described as a key part of the council’s recovery plan and would have seen collections move from weekly to fortnightly earlier this year.

Weekly food waste collections and a second recycling bin specifically for recycling paper and cardboard were also set to be introduced in phases across the city from April onwards.

But the new report notes: “The directorate have been asked to identify alternative cost savings and mitigations where possible, but it is unlikely that the risks can be fully offset.

“Revised plans for the transformation of waste and street scene are due to come back to cabinet and the impact will be reassessed at this point.”

The bins strike was initially sparked by the loss of the Waste Recycling and Collection Officer (WRCO) role.

Striking workers have raised concerns about pay while the Labour-run council’s leadership has repeatedly insisted a “fair and reasonable” offer had been made.