CAB Petition Handed To Birmingham City Council

Petitioning at the CAB in October

A petition gathered in just a few hours by the city centre CAB offices was handed in to Birmingham City Council’s November meeting, ahead of the start of budget consultations in December that will decide how to deal with a near doubling of the cuts of grants from central government.

The petition calls on the council to restore £120,000 of funding to the CAB so that their offices in Northfield, Tyseley and Kingstanding can remain open. These offices provide vital free advice to people on areas like housing, debts and benefits – two things which are desperately needed during a recession, especially one which is also seeing wide ranging benefit cuts and reforms that will “overwhelm” Birmingham’s advice centres.

Brett O’Reilly, Labour councillor for Northfield said

I handed in the petition, which I and a number of my council colleagues also signed, because I believe that third sector organisations, such as CAB, provide important services to the most vulnerable citizens of Birmingham.

I look forward to the response from Birmingham City Council, and can assure people that I will be continuing to campaign for protection of services in Birmingham, in spite of the massive cuts to council budgets by the government

Communities Against the Cuts, who collected the petition with us, and have been campaigning around the Northfield office specifically, had a stronger message for the Labour group running the council.

Communities Against the Cuts has encountered very strong support for the preservation of the award-winning Northfield CAB and the two others since it started its campaign for adequate funding from the city council. Whether it was at street stalls, ward committees or talking to service users, there has been nothing but praise for this essential public service.
The first cut to their funding may have come from the ConDem council, but does Labour really want to be remembered as the party that finished them off?

We have called for Albert Bore to join us in opposing austerity and to work for the citizens of Birmingham. The CAB provides a service which is incredibly important to the thousands of people who make use of it locally each year. A reduced service will mean more people struggling, especially following the introduction of Universal Credit next year.

You can add your voice to the campaign for the council to fund the CAB by writing to your local councillors, or by telling us either in the comments here or by emailing BirminghamAgainstTheCuts@gmail.com if you want to remain anonymous.