Questions are starting to emerge about how exactly Birmingham city council ended up in a financial crisis, and whether the figures behind its problems actually stack up.

Here is a rundown of how events unfolded.

April 2022 – The council’s new IT system, its first major upgrade since 1999, goes live. Councillors say IT staff warned that the system had not been fully tested and there were faults. Issues quickly materialise, but council officers say they are being dealt with.

April 2023 – The council’s then chief executive, Deborah Cadman, emails all councillors to say the IT transition is not running as smoothly as expected and has affected operations in finance and HR. A taskforce is established to deal with the issue.

June 2023 –…

It is a quiet night in Fairfield, in Sydney’s western suburbs. Inside a small brick building, a dozen Gamblers Anonymous members help themselves to coffee, tea and miniature meat pies. The meeting is taking place in a suburb that has one of the city’s lowest median incomes, and highest levels of gambling losses. A fifth of the state of New South Wales’s 25 most profitable gaming clubs are here, according to government data.

One of these clubs, Fairfield Returned and Services League (RSL), is just a two-minute walk away. It is a building totally at odds with the modest apartment blocks and shabby train station nearby. A pedestrian walkway inside is lined with palms and ferns, it has an elaborate fountain, a grand lobby. It seems…

In its fourth-quarter and fiscal 2024 report, released on New Year’s Eve, Mohegan Gaming had good news and bad news.

First, the good news. Company-wide, the Uncasville, Connecticut tribal operator saw net revenue of $1.9 billion (£1.528 billion/€1.844 billion) for fiscal 2024. That’s up 13% year-on-year and a new record.

Chief financial officer Ari Glazer attributed the upswing “primarily to continued growth in Mohegan Digital and revenue from Mohegan Inspire”. The latter, a $1.6 billion integrated resort (IR) in Incheon, South Korea, opened in March….

I remember Jason Clare defending the 7.1% indexation to Hecs debts in 2023 because a tertiary degree “makes you money”. I also recall the education minister’s praise of Australia’s student loan system at question time in February, lauding it for blowing “open the doors of university for more young Australians”, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Given Australia’s economic environment and the crushing burden of Hecs debts today, I find this all rather amusing.

Students and graduates are feeling the pinch. We’ve been battered by an unrelenting cost-of-living crisis, with rents, grocery prices and energy bills all climbing faster than our wages and student welfare payments. The financial stress and anxiety of…

Mosaic Brands, the parent company behind Australian clothing brands Rivers, Millers and Katies, has entered voluntary administration.

The ASX-listed company which operates more than 700 stores and employs about 3,000 staff released a statement on Monday confirming its board’s decision.

“Following recent attempts by the company to informally restructure its operations … voluntary administration is now the most appropriate way to restructure the group,” the statement said.

The company discontinued five of its signature brands in September and closed stores as it attempted to put its finances on a sound footing.

Mosaic said the closure of the Rockmans, Autograph, Crossroads, W.Lane and BeMe brands would allow it to focus on Millers,…

(InvestigateTV) — Bankrate found the average credit card interest rate today is 20.27%, making it very expensive to carry credit card debt.

Sara Rathner with NerdWallet said those carrying a lot of credit card debt may want to consider debt consolidation.

She said those with good credit could qualify for a balance transfer card. This would allow them to move debt to a card with no interest for a period of time.

There are two things consumers need to understand about the balance transfer process, Rathner said.

“One is that you’ll owe typically a balance transfer fee three to five percent of the balance you transfer so you’ll want to keep that in mind,” she explained. “And the other thing is, once that no interest promotion period…

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NEW YORK (AP) — Lenders will no longer be able to consider unpaid medical bills as a credit history factor when they evaluate potential borrowers in the U.S. for mortgages, car loans or business loans, according to a rule the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized Tuesday.

Removing medical debts from consumer credit reports is expected to increase the credit scores of millions of families by an average of 20 points, the bureau said. The CFPB says its research showed that outstanding health care claims are a poor predictor of someone’s ability to repay a loan yet often are used to deny mortgage applications.

The three national credit reporting agencies — Experian, Equifax and…