The top executive at Birmingham City Council spent the first week of the bin strike crisis on a sunny business jolly in Cannes, the Mail can reveal.
Joanne Roney, who is the managing director of the council, jetted off to the French Riviera for an investment conference in the same week bin workers began an all-out strike last month.
Her trip included a plum speaking role on a panel on March 12, the day after sweeping industrial action had started to unleash chaos across Britain’s second city.
Since then, more than 21,000 tonnes of uncollected rubbish has piled up on the streets, sparking fears of a public health crisis as vermin feast on mountains of waste.
It led the council to declare a major incident, with deputy prime minister Angela Rayner this week wading into the row as she urged the striking workers to accept an ‘improved’ deal.
Yet as the city was staring down the barrel of a major political crisis, its most senior executive was hundreds of miles away, sipping wine and basking in glorious sunshine on the Côte d’Azur.
She was attending MIPIM – described as the world’s largest real estate conference – which is regularly attended by city leaders hoping to attract developer interest in their region.
Sources have told the Mail that she was away for an entire week – a claim the council did not deny.
Joanne Roney, Birmingham City Council’s most senior executive, was snapped at various events at the MIPIM conference in Cannes last month
Meanwhile, the streets of Birmingham were buried under thousands of tonnes of rubbish as bin workers walked out over a pay dispute with the council
Fears of a major public health crisis have grown since the start of the strike, due to the vast amount of dumped waste on the streets
She appeared on a panel called ‘Leveraging UK Innovation: Major investment opportunities in the new London-Birmingham corridor’ and was pictured enjoying a glass of red wine at one event.
The revelations raise fresh questions about the competence of the council’s response to the crisis, after a key councillor, Majid Mahmood, recently infuriated colleagues by flying off to Egypt for a ‘jolly paid for by a charity’.
The Mail also revealed this week that Labour MP Liam Byrne – whose constituents are among those worst affected in Birmingham – extended a luxurious work trip to Japan into a personal holiday.
Furious critics tonight accused Ms Roney of going missing in action.
Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said: ‘It shows peculiarly bad judgement. It epitomises the whole way this council has been run, it’s a shocking shambles.
‘They stand condemned by their own actions, which is inaction.’
Tory MP Sir John Hayes said: ‘When a ship is on the rocks, it’s not unreasonable to expect the captain to be on the bridge.
‘If the person in command chooses to be sailing in a different direction, that is nowhere near the problem or its potential solution, it doesn’t inspire confidence at a time of crisis.’
Tory MP Greg Smith said: ‘It seems the metropolitan elite in Birmingham are happy to sun themselves whilst the people they serve watch the rubbish pile high on the streets.’
Joanne Roney took over the top job at Birmingham City Council in 2024, with a view to steadying the ship after the local authority declared effective bankruptcy
Joanne Roney attended numerous events during her week in the south of France, a decision which critics have described as ‘peculiarly bad judgement’
Residents in Birmingham have grown so desperate they have gone to increasingly bizarre lengths to get rid of their waste
An estimated 21,000 tonnes of rubbish remains uncollected on the streets of Birmingham
Ms Roney is the former chief executive of Manchester City Council who has been awarded a CBE for her services to local government.
She was parachuted in to the top job in Birmingham last year, after it declared bankruptcy over a £350 million black hole in its finances.
At the time, she declared that the prospect of ‘helping the place where I grew up and my family still live rise to its current challenges, was a compelling one’.
But now the council has been accused of failing to rise to one of its biggest challenges in years, as the strike passed the one-month milestone without a resolution.
William Yarwood, media campaign manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: ‘Brummies will be outraged to see that their council’s top boss was in Cannes while rubbish was beginning to pile up on their streets.
‘Birmingham is facing one of the worst crises in its history, yet instead of leading from the front, the council’s most senior executive was rubbing shoulders on the Riviera. Taxpayers fund her salary and expect her to be tackling problems, not sipping rosé on a work jolly.’
The Unite union said a ballot on the latest deal offered by the council would close on Monday.
Bin workers walked out over plans to scrap a role on the city’s collection teams – but the council said just 17 staff would face the maximum financial loss of up to £6,000 per year under its pay restructuring plans.
A council spokesman said: ‘The West Midlands’ presence at real estate conference MIPIM was led by the West Midlands Growth Company – the region’s official Investment Promotion Agency.
‘Joanne Roney was part of the public-private cohort representing Birmingham and the West Midlands in plenary sessions and meetings promoting the region’s investment potential. This was a planned work trip, and all of Joanne’s expenses, including flights and accommodation, have been funded by the private sector.
‘It remains a critical objective for Birmingham City Council to identify and secure new investment that helps fund the city’s housing, and infrastructure demands, supporting local growth.’
