Last Monday, the community council resolved to increase the council tax precept by just under 3%. Although I have campaigned for lower precepts in the past, I think that we should have been more conservative this year, given the level of activity Blaenhonddan community is committed to. We are gambling on no major unforeseen expenditure arising, which would deplete the reserves.

The Independent today (as part of a report about a favourable outcome for UK investors in Kaupthing) has worrying news about Glitnir Bank, which had its first creditors’ meeting a fortnight ago.  Stephen Jones, the finance director of the Local Government Association (LGA), attempted to have UK councils named as “priority” creditors rather than simply as “general unsecured” creditors, which would mean that councils could get back as little as 25 per cent of their money. In Landsbanki’s winding-up order, UK councils were made priority claimants.

Mr Jones seems (the report to the creditors is still confidential) to have failed so far, but a spokesman for the LGA said that nothing had changed since the December meeting, and that discussions were ongoing. The good news is that Neath Port Talbot had only£1 million invested in Glitnir. A possible loss of £750,000 is not to be taken lightly, but it could have been worse if either of the other two banks with which your council is involved had not been predicted to repay virtually 100%.

Legal action could still follow and the only certain winners from the situation are accountants and lawyers.

 [Update 2010-1-5: the President of Iceland has put on hold the legislation to repay the Icesave (not Kaupthing as a whole, as I wrote above) deposits. It can now only be saved by a positive vote in a referendum.]

The leader of the council has issued a statement following Wednesday night’s disastrous fire in Aberavon. I note that the official web-site does not report the statement made by Cllr Mike James, the cabinet member for environment and leisure, made in the emotional morning-after, when he implied that there would be a like-for-like rebuild. Perhaps there have been second thoughts.

I honestly sympathise with the regular users of the pool or other facilities at the Lido who are going to have difficulty finding an adequate substitute. However, in these straitened times, it behoves the council to cast a cold eye on financing a replacement and on budgeting for its maintenance. If rebuilding is covered by insurance, all well and good, but the county borough’s council tax payers cannot afford grandiose plans which go beyond that.

Yesterday, Council heard a presentation from Steve Thomas of the Welsh Local Government Association on the probable Welsh Assembly Government settlement for 2009/10 and the prospects for future years. He described it as a horror story, but also said that the current settlement was “as good as it gets”. The WLGA press release gives the gist of his message.

Whatever shade of government appears in Westminster next year, there are bound to be cuts. It seems to me that, in this respect, the split between socialists, conservatives, liberal democrats and nationalists is less important than that between Westminster, Cardiff and local authorities. It has been shown that local government is more efficient than central government, yet it is virtually certain that town hall will be called upon to make greater cuts than Whitehall. I like to think that Liberal Democrats, because of our important local government base and our emphasis on governing at the lowest level necessary, would be more discriminating when in power, but there is the Westminster group-think of the civil service to overcome.

The silver lining locally is that Neath Port Talbot is among the best-prepared of local authorities to cope with the restrictions. The former council leader and former chief executive, together with director of finance Derek Davies, anticipated the fall in WAG settlements and planned accordingly. Even so, their figures for 2011/12 & later may be optimistic, and the effect of the Icelandic bank failure has yet to be worked out.

Update: the record of the draft budget debate in the Welsh Assembly is online. Go to http://www.assemblywales.org/bus-home/bus-chamber/bus-chamber-third-assembly-rop.htm?act=dis&id=152972&ds=11/2009 and search for (F3 key or ctrl/f) “The Draft Budget”.

The Finance Meeting scheduled for 14 September 2009 has been cancelled and will now be held on Monday 5 October 2009.

I couldn’t resist linking to this vintage Pathé 1945 general election short, even though it has no local interest (apart from the Welsh dragon flag in the background!). It is of Sir Archibald Sinclair, the Liberal leader in 1945, reminding the voters of the progressive policies which the Liberal Party had introduced - the secret ballot, health & unemployment insurance and free education, for instance. Labour did a lot between 1945 and 1949, but it is easy to forget how the foundations had been laid by Liberal governments, and by Liberal thinkers like Keynes and Beveridge.

Sinclair lost his seat of Caithness & Sutherland in that Labour landslide. Perhaps he didn’t campaign too hard locally, relying on a “promise by Sinclair’s Conservative opponent to resign his seat in Sinclair’s favour if he won. Needless to say, the promise went unfulfilled” (Liberal Democrat History Group biography). The beneficiary (if that’s the correct word) as leader of the Liberal Party was Clement Davies, member for Montgomery, now held by Lembit Öpik.

Just a short note to say that Thursday afternoon’s Audit Committee was able to satisfy itself that the dire predictions in some quarters that 90% of councils’ deposits in Icelandic banks was lost were a long way from reality. It does look as if all Neath Port Talbot’s investment in one of the banks is recoverable, and probably most of the rest. More anon.