Blogging has been on the back burner for age, not because of the “hate mail” threats but because of the heavy schedule of training sessions and meetings demanded by County Hall. I’ve had three compulsory training sessions, and more are in the diary, plus Overview and Scrutiny, Corporate Governance and Local Government and Democratic Services presentations. As I’m on the Audit Committee, we had to learn how to read an accounts sheet and fathom the mysteries of Local Government finance.

The Authority turns over some £360 million and manages a pension fund of £900m. The Council is legally bound to produce a budget by a given day and 100’s of officers are involved in closing the accounts for the year ending March 2008. (more…)