By Professor John Clancy and Professor David Bailey

In the last week of November the West Midlands Pension Fund published its Statement of Accounts in its annual report.

It stated on page 76 that the assets of the fund were £21,219.9 million: 

So the WMPF had an surplus of £1,541.9 million. Call it £1.5 billion. 

Birmingham has a share of about 27% of the pension fund, and so each year must report its share of the liabilities and assets In its annual accounts. 

The accounts should have been published in September, but Mr. Caller prevented publication. He will, we are sure, have seen these accounts. 

This is what it looked like in the last set of published accounts we have for Birmingham City Council, those in March 2022: 

There is nothing to stop the publication of those sections of the accounts dealing with the pension fund and in particular the three figures there for the assets, liabilities and net surplus/deficit of Birmingham's share of the fund. 

So, can Mr. Caller do so? It's not a difficult thing to do. 

He can also then confirm that he agrees with us that the surplus in the Birmingham City Council pension fund is approximately £417 million. 

After all the complex tables and graphs and difficult maths and calculations, and complex explanations (which we know takes a lot of thinking through) it just does boil down to this one simple point. 

Show us the money, Mr.Caller. 

It shouldn't take long, so the stopwatch is ticking.