Is Oracle to blame for Birmingham's bankruptcy?

Plus: £15m for culture in the region

Good morning Patchers — welcome to your Thursday briefing.

It’s been a budget-bonkers week with both Birmingham’s vote and Jeremy Hunt’s Spring forecast dominating the headlines. On the former, a piece in The Conversation that suggests the Oracle disaster is the real reason for the city’s bankruptcy has been doing the rounds. We’ve shared a link to that below. As for Hunt, there isn’t much West Midlands-focused finance news, but there is some good news for the arts, second in our briefing for today.

We were also interested to find out two Islamic scholars from Birmingham were integral to a new global charter to tackle climate change, and we’ve corrected the information we put out yesterday about the Tony Blackburn gig at the Town Hall. Blackburn is playing tonight — the gig is a rescheduled event.

Look out for more from us in your inbox tomorrow. And remember there are only a few days left to apply for our exciting staff writer job vacancy! With another team member, we will be able to do more in-depth reporting, features and investigations. These take time and money, so please consider supporting us for £8 a month, joining 496 enthusiastic readers and helping us reach the big 500. Thanks all.

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Brum in Brief

💻A different perspective: Could Oracle be the real reason Birmingham is bankrupt? Researcher James Brackley has argued exactly that in this piece which suggests equal pay is merely a cover-up. Brackley’s investigation with the Audit Reform Lab at the University of Sheffield has found evidence that “the spiralling budget deficits cited in the section 114 notice have little to do with the equal pay issue”. The calamitous Oracle IT system is to blame, according to the team of number crunchers. You can read more here.

💰Cash for culture: The West Midlands is set for a £15 million boost for culture, heritage and investment in the Spring Budget, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced yesterday. £10m is earmarked for cultural and heritage projects with £5m to drive inward investment (money from outside the region coming in). The money will be allocated to the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA)

🌎Balancing act: A pioneering Brum charity has played a key part in developing an Islamic charter to tackle climate change. Kamran Shezad and Fazlun Khalid — director and founder of the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Science, based in Balsall Heath — co-authored the work alongside other global Islamic scholars. They met in Nairobi on Tuesday, alongside the United Nations Environment Assembly, to launch the charter which is called Al-Mizan (“balance” in Arabic). It is a landmark document that provides a comprehensive Islamic view on environmental moral responsibility.

Kamran Shezad, Fazlun Khalid and Othman Llewellyn, three of the authors of Al-Mizan.

🎶Swinging 60s are back!: A correction from us: Tony Blackburn’s sounds of the 60s gig at the Town Hall is going ahead tonight at 7.30pm (we suggested it had been moved, sorry for the confusion). There are a handful of tickets left so get yours while you can.

🎨Art Mart: The Kings Heath Artisan Market will start up again on Sunday selling art and fresh produce on York Road between 10am and 3pm. Organiser Pip Bradley told us she’s “fighting to create affordable opportunities for creative and micro food businesses”. Pip is opening similar markets in the Jewellery Quarter and Bournville later in the month — you can find out more here.