As the leader of Birmingham City Council I want to be one of many leaders in our great city.

We face tremendous challenges and the city council will not be the one with all the answers to these challenges, all of us in this city must work together.

We need to become a step-up city and this website will record the efforts of leaders across Birmingham – that means individuals, young people, businesses, charities and more.

I don’t want to run this city, I want to lead this city. That means instead of the council doing things to the city, it needs to start doing things with the city.

It needs now to look to the city’s citizens, businesses, charities, other partners and its young people and to help us with finding the answers to the many financial and other challenges we now face.

Fighting Poverty and Building Economic Security and building sustainable wealth in this city is a joint enterprise. The council can’t do it. The city itself must do it together.

A government can fight poverty, a council can fight poverty, a charity can fight poverty. But businesses fight poverty too, and we should not forget that.

The choices we have to make in the immediate future are dire and grave and depressing, not least for those who rely on our services most – the young, the vulnerable, the old.

So we must sometimes look up from the despair and do what we can to build hope. We’re one of the youngest cities in Europe – we have great potential.

We must have a long term economic plan that starts to look at building our Revenues. It means working through the economic growth of the city and its region, working together with other local government leaders and other partners across the region. It means working with leaders across the city.

So ask yourself: What can you do for this city? Can you step-up to meet the challenges and help the council as we remodel and re-imagine what we can do?

All of us can in some way, great or small become civic leaders. You don’t have to become an elected politician to become a civic leader.

So please join me and step up Birmingham