£24m of Lancashire taxpayers' cash in crisis-hit Icelandic bank (From Preston and Leyland Citizen)

I hope the person responsible for risking an incredible amount of our cash on this bank comes out and faces the music, and doesn't just hide away in county hall.

I sent a letter last December to the Leaders and Chief Executives of Lanacshire Caounty Council and Pendle Borough Council and my councillors titled 'Who's looking after the fish fingers?'

In that letter I begged them to make sure that Council taxpayers money held in Treasury was safe given that the ratings of the credit agencies could no longer be trusted.

Pendle Council and my councillors never responded to my letters at all - heads in the sand, obviously.

Lancashire County Council to its credit did respond and basically they told me not to worry my pretty little head as they were smart cookies.

Well it truns-out that they weren't smart.

I still have the correspondence on file.

What you should have done Kevin was send them a letter offering more money in interest payments than the Icelandic bank then you would have been sent a letter by return of post with a massive cheque attached to it.

What they call sound investment at the time is actually motivated by state sponsored Executive Greed.

Though they are probably just too stupified from their council sponsored perks and jollies to know the difference.

For future note: If the money was placed in a reputable English banking institution, maybe the pound would have stayed strong while every other currency weakened.

will heads roll for this????DONT HOLD YOUR BREATH..this lot want sacking,from bottom of bunch all way through..can i do a better job???i couldnt do worse!!!

phew, at least blackburn with darwen isn't there - i can still apply for that job then....!

Executives and Financiers should be putting the care of the community before speculating on the up and down side of interest rates in frozen foods.

It beggars belief how far we have strayed from the plot.

Iceland have at least 400 stores, I think the very least they should do is provide our single mums and pensioners with free fish fingers!

Along with seven other Burnley councillors, I am a councillor on Burnley Council's Finance and Performance Scrutiny Panel. One of the panel's responsibilities is to monitor the council's treasury function on behalf of residents.

I have not consulted the other seven before replying here, though I am sure I would be speaking for all eight of us, even though that includes councillors from four political parties. We are all of one voice on behalf of residents.

We are as worried about the world monetary situation as everyone else, and are as aware of the risks as is everyone else, because we read the same newspapers and watch the same TV news stations as everyone else.

In the end, we're members of the public who have accepted the responsibility for keeping an eye on this very problem.

The director of resources at Burnley Council has a legal responsibility to handle public money safely. He takes this responsibility extremely seriously, as do we, and most likely as do the equivalent people at the other councils.

For this reason, the council takes advice from three separate credit rating agencies, and places money only with those institutions that are deemed to be the lowest risk.

We are legally required to spread the money between multiple institutions to minimise the risk.

On any given day, when investments mature, it is necessary to find another institution prepared to take the money. We can't simply leave the money 'in the bank' as this amounts to lending the money to a bank, nor can we leave £1m 'under the bed' for obvious reasons. So, on any given day, the institution that receives the money is the one that offers the best combination of return and low risk. These transactions take place via a recognised capital market.

Landsbanki was rated highly by all these agencies.

Some of the posters here have suggested that we, or the director, should have second-guessed the world's best experts and made our own choice about where to invest the money. The suggestion is that the credit reference agencies can't be trusted. Well, if that's the case, who do we trust instead? Who is left? We're not experts - we're no wiser than you. Do we just stick a pin in a list?

Had we just got our calculators out and then guessed, that would have been the real scandal. Instead, the best advice has been taken and followed. The result is that £1m is now at risk, but I am quite sure no improvements could have been made on the approach taken.

In the event the council has simply borrowed an additional £1m for a time - a reasonably small sum in capital terms - whilst the negotiations take place nationally in a co-ordinated effort via the government to retrieve the money.

Dealing with this is not trivial, but it is entirely manageable.

I'm shocked that so much of Lancashire resident's money is at risk from the 'freezing up' of the Icelandic banks.

At today's meeting of the county council's cabinet, I demanded that the Labour administration get Gordon Brown to guarantee that our council tax payers don't lose out in this fiasco.

The financial 'free for all' introduced by the Tories (and continued by Labour) has led to this freefall.

It's probably as safe to stuff cash under the mattress as deposit it with any bank at present - no one knows what's going to fold next.

Hi Darren,

Is losing your money - manageable.

I understand the job description of financiers who have the responsibility for the placement of large amounts of capital. Though it would have been safe if they had put it in my bank account. I would have been happy to provide them with a withdrawal facility.

I can understand that it also pays or seeks financial advice as to the best options that are available.

The problem I have is that no matter who you seek advice from there can and is often a financial imperitive at play in the quality of the advice you are given.

People are paid quite well to ensure that nobody is required to take any responsibility whatsoever for acting on what has obviously turned out to be crappy advice.

If People are working in a systemic frame of mind whereby no matter how much of other peoples money they lose it will not cost them a penny then they are part of the same ' no responsibility for anything whatsoever mind-set ' that has undoubtably created the problem in the first place. Executives need to sit down, wake up, and come up with a plan for using their own highly educated and under used brains. Instead of merely following a set of un-regulated always make sure my job is covered rules.

Perhaps if these financial whizzkids looking after our money had to have their wages reduced in accordance with their performance they may at least not regard the advice of three other independent credit rating agencies as quite so beneficial as it obviously turned out not to be.

Who knows, These Executives of Finance may have acted on their own initiative and used their own common sense instead of farming out the responsibility to some financial experts in a financial cartel of financial wizards who are as easy to pinpoint as a diminishing equity in a credit crunch.

I would say to the men and speculators who invest and deposit our money all over the globe in very dubious and unknown and unquantifiable assets - Either you are up to the job and you can take responsibility for looking after our money or you can't.

Did any of these council fiananciers have any of their own money in Iceland ?

Darren Reynolds wrote:
Along with seven other Burnley councillors, I am a councillor on Burnley Council's Finance and Performance Scrutiny Panel. One of the panel's responsibilities is to monitor the council's treasury function on behalf of residents. I have not consulted the other seven before replying here, though I am sure I would be speaking for all eight of us, even though that includes councillors from four political parties. We are all of one voice on behalf of residents. We are as worried about the world monetary situation as everyone else, and are as aware of the risks as is everyone else, because we read the same newspapers and watch the same TV news stations as everyone else. In the end, we're members of the public who have accepted the responsibility for keeping an eye on this very problem. The director of resources at Burnley Council has a legal responsibility to handle public money safely. He takes this responsibility extremely seriously, as do we, and most likely as do the equivalent people at the other councils. For this reason, the council takes advice from three separate credit rating agencies, and places money only with those institutions that are deemed to be the lowest risk. We are legally required to spread the money between multiple institutions to minimise the risk. On any given day, when investments mature, it is necessary to find another institution prepared to take the money. We can't simply leave the money 'in the bank' as this amounts to lending the money to a bank, nor can we leave £1m 'under the bed' for obvious reasons. So, on any given day, the institution that receives the money is the one that offers the best combination of return and low risk. These transactions take place via a recognised capital market. Landsbanki was rated highly by all these agencies. Some of the posters here have suggested that we, or the director, should have second-guessed the world's best experts and made our own choice about where to invest the money. The suggestion is that the credit reference agencies can't be trusted. Well, if that's the case, who do we trust instead? Who is left? We're not experts - we're no wiser than you. Do we just stick a pin in a list? Had we just got our calculators out and then guessed, that would have been the real scandal. Instead, the best advice has been taken and followed. The result is that £1m is now at risk, but I am quite sure no improvements could have been made on the approach taken. In the event the council has simply borrowed an additional £1m for a time - a reasonably small sum in capital terms - whilst the negotiations take place nationally in a co-ordinated effort via the government to retrieve the money. Dealing with this is not trivial, but it is entirely manageable.

Whereas I agree that the current world economic situation could not reasonably have been predicted, I do find it alarming to read that the committee making financial decisions on behalf of tax payers don’t regard themselves as experts. I just wonder what financial experience do the committee members bring to the table, are they men of business in private life? captains of industry? do they hold any academic qualifications? ….what do they do for a living? I would hate to think the committee making decisions on where to place £millions of public money were made up of taxi drivers or the long term unemployed.

Our kids and our kids kids look like they are going to be providing a lending service to the banks for a very long time.

Who is running the country ? A handful of unknowable speculators or the Government ?

Does this mean that David Whipp and his incompetent colleagues will stop claiming ridiculous allowances - I believe on the last count it was £50K and counting.

Personally I suggest as tax payers we take legal action action against these incompetent elected councillors for negligence in undertaking their duties I have not seen one of them come on this site and say they will not take their undeserved allowances - all I have heard is excuses. As for the county - the issue is - WHEN WAS THIS MONEY INVESTED IN THIS BANK - IF IT TURNS OUT THAT THIS WAS A SHORT TERM INVESTMENT THEN AM AFRAID QUESTIONS HAVE TO BE ASKED ABOUT THE ABILITY OF THE OFFICERS AND ELECTED MEMBERS OVERSEEING THE INVESTMENT STRATEGY AS TO THEIR CAPABILITIES. EVEN AN ESKIMO WOULD HAVE BEEN AWARE SINCE JUNE/JULY 2008 THAT THE CREDIT CRUNCH WAS BROADER THAN ASSUMMED AND AS A RESULT THEIR SHOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER RISK STRATEGIES IN PLACE. ALSO RAISES ISSUES ABOUT THE SCRUTINY PROCESS.

Darren Reynolds wrote:
Along with seven other Burnley councillors, I am a councillor on Burnley Council's Finance and Performance Scrutiny Panel. One of the panel's responsibilities is to monitor the council's treasury function on behalf of residents. I have not consulted the other seven before replying here, though I am sure I would be speaking for all eight of us, even though that includes councillors from four political parties. We are all of one voice on behalf of residents. We are as worried about the world monetary situation as everyone else, and are as aware of the risks as is everyone else, because we read the same newspapers and watch the same TV news stations as everyone else. In the end, we're members of the public who have accepted the responsibility for keeping an eye on this very problem. The director of resources at Burnley Council has a legal responsibility to handle public money safely. He takes this responsibility extremely seriously, as do we, and most likely as do the equivalent people at the other councils. For this reason, the council takes advice from three separate credit rating agencies, and places money only with those institutions that are deemed to be the lowest risk. We are legally required to spread the money between multiple institutions to minimise the risk. On any given day, when investments mature, it is necessary to find another institution prepared to take the money. We can't simply leave the money 'in the bank' as this amounts to lending the money to a bank, nor can we leave £1m 'under the bed' for obvious reasons. So, on any given day, the institution that receives the money is the one that offers the best combination of return and low risk. These transactions take place via a recognised capital market. Landsbanki was rated highly by all these agencies. Some of the posters here have suggested that we, or the director, should have second-guessed the world's best experts and made our own choice about where to invest the money. The suggestion is that the credit reference agencies can't be trusted. Well, if that's the case, who do we trust instead? Who is left? We're not experts - we're no wiser than you. Do we just stick a pin in a list? Had we just got our calculators out and then guessed, that would have been the real scandal. Instead, the best advice has been taken and followed. The result is that £1m is now at risk, but I am quite sure no improvements could have been made on the approach taken. In the event the council has simply borrowed an additional £1m for a time - a reasonably small sum in capital terms - whilst the negotiations take place nationally in a co-ordinated effort via the government to retrieve the money. Dealing with this is not trivial, but it is entirely manageable.

If you want to know how stupid your Burnley Councillors are and how out of touch they are read the last two paragraphs. The words "trivial" and "manageable" speak volumes. I take it this buffoon and his colleages are also responsible for the mismanagement of millions of pounds of working neighbourhood fund as well. As for being able to second guess the markets - I dont think you are even capable of telling the difference between your right and left hand.

It was clear to me last December that many of the ratings given by credit rating agencies were suspect. One had only to read the financial press and disgest the news to realise that no one with an ounce of gumption should put their faith in them; and therein lies the problem. Trust has collapsed and confidence has evaporated.

Just for the record here is an extract from my Invesment Diary of Wednesday 19 December, 2007

'Standard and Poor’s cut the rating on ACA Financial Guaranty Corp. from ‘A’ to ‘CCC’. For a moment I thought I must have misread the story, but no it is correct. In other words this firm has gone from the sixth highest investment grade to junk in one move. The banks that insured securities with ACA will now have to take back billions in losses from the insurer under the terms of the credit protection they bought from the company. Sheeeesh. Officials from Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns and other major banks are reportedly discussing ways to rescue ACA in order to avoid this eventuality, which could amount to taking liability for some or all of $26bn. of guaranteed mortgage securities. Rating agencies say that they may review the ratings of other bond issuers too. This will be fun. Mind you they are a little late. Last week ACA Capital was de-listed from the NYSE but S&P maintained its credit rating at ‘A’ right up until today. On Tuesday the stock was trading on the curb at about 40c. In the summer it was $15. I bet that had these people been around at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution they would have adjusted their rating on Russian Government Bonds issued by the Tsar from ‘Buy’ to ‘Strong Hold’.

The next wave of the credit tsunami is about the hit the shores. Rating agencies are now being forced to face the reality of the situation and downgrade the bond issuers, and it’s not a pretty sight. This will place further stress on the financial system, and central banks can do nothing other than print money and lower interest rates. This, of course, will destroy the value of the currency and impoverish the citizenry. Meanwhile leading members of the political elite have the audacity to stand there and with a straight face tell us the UK economy is strong. It looks like they are about to get a lesson in economics that they’ll remember for a very long time.'

The money that has been lost was contributed from hard working citizens some of who are earning the minimum wage and others who are on fixed income pensions. For every £1 that a citizens pays in Council Tax they have to earn £1.30 or thereabouts before stoppages in order to pay it. Now a sizable amount of that money has been destroyed and all we get from the rulers is "Not us, guv".

This is not a suprise the council have been wasting our money for years.
They would have been better betting the cash on on the football results than putting it in some bank in Iceland.We need a Revolution in England

Mr Smooth writes:

If you want to know how stupid your Burnley Councillors are ...

IQ 147 in my case, since you raise it. Is that a problem, Mr Smooth?

Prof Plum writes:

I just wonder what financial experience do the committee members bring to the table, are they men of business in private life? captains of industry?

Their experience is mixed. I know one's a shopkeeper and I think one used to work for an insurance broker's, but I'm not sure about the rest. In my case I spent three years on the board of a £100m insurance company, two in a well known UK bank and am currently MD of a company with over 100 personnel.

But I am telling you, I am not an expert in treasury functions, and certainly not an expert in credit rating. Credit rating requires extensive, diligent research which is best done by those with the proper qualifications to do it - not some idiot sitting at home in front of his PC with a copy of the Daily Mail and a calculator, and not a Council treasury official either.

Kevin Hey writes:

It was clear to me last December that many of the ratings given by credit rating agencies were suspect.

First can I thank you for using your own name. At least we know who you are.

Well of course they were suspect, Kevin, and many other people knew that even at the time, but what did you want your council to do about it? Start taking advice from Mystic Meg? Guess?

Landsbanki is the second largest Icelandic bank and until a few days ago there were no indications of any problems. At least the chancellor has frozen their UK assets - that's to be welcomed. But if all councils had simply stuck their money in HSBC or bought gold bars, that would have been a huge risk in comparison.

What I do come to believe with all this is that it is not the quality of the decision-making that counts, but the perception of the quality. You can hire the best experts to tell you that the world is round, but if it doesn't look round, a lot of people are going to be skeptical. If a ship then sinks trying to prove the world's round, there are some who will say that's proof that it's flat. Feels to me that's pretty much where we are.

Well then the question has to be do we need 8 of you on the panel?



Given what you are telling us that sounds as if it might not be a bad idea.

Edit: quotes missing...

'The suggestion is that the credit reference agencies can't be trusted. Well, if that's the case, who do we trust instead? Who is left? We're not experts - we're no wiser than you.'

Well then the question has to be do we need 8 of you on the panel?

'Do we just stick a pin in a list?'

Given what you are telling us that sounds as if it might not be a bad idea.

Let's be quite clear here: IQ is a wonderful thing but what councils need is common sense and that's an entirely different matter.

The truth is that local authorities were taking advice from Mystic Megs but didn't have the brains to put two and two together to realise it; and that is just the point - the stage had been reached when the varacity of the ratings by rating agencies had descended into Alice in Wonderland.

I too am not an expert in treasury function but it turns out that some of the tresauries aren't that good at it either. What we're taking about here required very little expertise in this function at all. What was needed was to read, think and then join the dots together in the right order.

Let me put into the public domain what I said in my letter to the Leader of Lancashire County Council on 31 December 2007:

'In my view the key point here is that the understandings and assumptions (cognitive map) to which many treasurers may have been working might no longer be an accurate reflection of current realities. I fear that public treasuries may have placed substantial sums of money into paper endorsed as investment grade by rating agencies that should have been labelled junk.

This is the equivalent of going to the supermarket and buying a packet of fillet fish fingers only to arrive home and find they have been made of Play-Doh.

The ramifications of all of this are almost beyond comprehension. ... In my view someone at Lancashire County Council should be checking the fish fingers and inspecting carefully each one in turn and not merely relying on what it says on the box.

If they are not prepared to do this I hope you will use your good offices as Leader of the Council to get them to do so - and fast.

When this has been done it will be one less thing to worry about'.

I received a reply which I believe was from the Executive Member Resources who told me:

'Our investments are purely cash deposits where capital is preserved. The credit rating is on the advice of Sector Services and others who provide this service to most local authorities. I appreciate your concerns following the Northern Rock problems, but we must hold the money and strive to do so in as secure a manner as possible'.

In point of fact I never mentioned Norther Rock in my letter of 31 December but was trying, unsucessfully as it turned out, to argue that even the safety of cash deposits was in doubt.

I was slapped down for my trouble and Lancashire County Council is now in a hole to the tune of £10m.

If we have a situation where treasuries rely on rating agencies and councillors rely on both then we have a system that has no proper scrutiny and independent thinking at all. In short what we have is a club composed of lemmings.

Let's be quite clear here: IQ is a wonderful thing but what councils need is common sense and that's an entirely different matter.

The truth is that local authorities were taking advice from Mystic Megs but didn't have the brains to put two and two together to realise it; and that is just the point - the stage had been reached when the varacity of the ratings by rating agencies had descended into Alice in Wonderland.

I too am not an expert in treasury function but it turns out that some of the tresauries aren't that good at it either. What we're taking about here required very little expertise in this function at all. What was needed was to read, think and then join the dots together in the right order.

Let me put into the public domain what I said in my letter to the Leader of Lancashire County Council on 31 December 2007:

'In my view the key point here is that the understandings and assumptions (cognitive map) to which many treasurers may have been working might no longer be an accurate reflection of current realities. I fear that public treasuries may have placed substantial sums of money into paper endorsed as investment grade by rating agencies that should have been labelled junk.

This is the equivalent of going to the supermarket and buying a packet of fillet fish fingers only to arrive home and find they have been made of Play-Doh.

The ramifications of all of this are almost beyond comprehension. ... In my view someone at Lancashire County Council should be checking the fish fingers and inspecting carefully each one in turn and not merely relying on what it says on the box.

If they are not prepared to do this I hope you will use your good offices as Leader of the Council to get them to do so - and fast.

When this has been done it will be one less thing to worry about'.

I received a reply which I believe was from the Executive Member Resources who told me:

'Our investments are purely cash deposits where capital is preserved. The credit rating is on the advice of Sector Services and others who provide this service to most local authorities. I appreciate your concerns following the Northern Rock problems, but we must hold the money and strive to do so in as secure a manner as possible'.

In point of fact I never mentioned Norther Rock in my letter of 31 December but was trying, unsucessfully as it turned out, to argue that even the safety of cash deposits was in doubt.

I was slapped down for my trouble and Lancashire County Council is now in a hole to the tune of £10m.

If we have a situation where treasuries rely on rating agencies and councillors rely on both then we have a system that has no proper scrutiny and independent thinking at all. In short what we have is a club composed of lemmings.

Well done, Blackburn with Darwen - "But for the grace of God............"
I would not be a councillor for all the tea in China!! Slagged off for trying to do the best for the town in most cases. I am sure that a lot more "clever" blokes would have done the same to get the best investment - look at West Ham FC (I never had any sympathy for them though)!!

Well lancashire council are you going blame the BNP for this you cannot run a pis**up in a brewery ,time after time in burnley in particular you have tried to blame the bnp for everything and anything ,the truth is you are incompetent fools unemployment is rising as is poverty as fuel bills are rising ,and still we allow poles,somalias,roman
ians,congolise etc etc to take our jobs as the indiginous population suffer ? roll on the general election.

Smooth wrote:
Does this mean that David Whipp and his incompetent colleagues will stop claiming ridiculous allowances - I believe on the last count it was £50K and counting.

what the hell has this got to do with inept councils losing money in a icelandic bank.it has not sunk in yet has it numpty.i take you are on the dole and dont pay council tax with this reply.any council can and will bring in emergency measures to charge extra council tax on top of what you and i already pay.to cover for the losses.if these money men are having to take advice from other organisations then they are not up to the job.get rid.and the david whipp quote.look at what he does for what he gets.he is not the only councillor to get well paid.look at burnley and blackburn they have councillors that have been hiding in pakistan for 6 months and are picking up thousands for absolutly doing nothing.thats what you should be worring about.at least whippy is here and working for his money.unlike these leeches of the community.get it sorted

As my cover has now been blown this will be my very last posting on the LET.

First of all I'd like to thank the LET for allowing me to post. It's been terrific fun. Secondly I'd like to thank those who have said some kind things about my postings. Thirdly I'd like to thank those who have disagreed with me and engaged in debate - that's been fun too.

I'd just like to make two further points about the sitiation in regard to the frezing of monies in Iceland (no pun intended).

It is said that coucnillors read the same papers as everyone else and therein lies the danger. On matters of finance newspapers and trade magazines/journals tend by and large to reflect conventional wisdom (the orthodoxy). For most of the time the orthodoxy serves us well, but from where do we get the other-side of the argument (the hetrodoxy)? The hetrodox may be valid or bonkers but there may came a point when the hetrodox should replace the orthodox. This does not happen overnight but sometimes there is a point where one can dedect that the existing orthodoxy no longer holds good. In regard to rating agencies this happened last year.

My second point refers to the plea by councils for central government to make good the loss of capital. When councillors use the word government what they really mean is the taxpayer.

This call is no doubt motivated by good intentions but if you wish to destroy your tresaury function then this is the way to do it. Once central government guarantees commercial deposits two things will happen for sure: no one deposting money will think to bother and no one will bother to think. That has to some extent happened already but losing a large amount of money is certain to concentrate the minds wonderfully and make the treasury even more circumspcet in the future.

Thnak you.

Kevin

its only money, get over it you imbeciles.

Darren Reynolds wrote:
Mr Smooth writes:

If you want to know how stupid your Burnley Councillors are ...

IQ 147 in my case, since you raise it. Is that a problem, Mr Smooth? Prof Plum writes:

I just wonder what financial experience do the committee members bring to the table, are they men of business in private life? captains of industry?

Their experience is mixed. I know one's a shopkeeper and I think one used to work for an insurance broker's, but I'm not sure about the rest. In my case I spent three years on the board of a £100m insurance company, two in a well known UK bank and am currently MD of a company with over 100 personnel. But I am telling you, I am not an expert in treasury functions, and certainly not an expert in credit rating. Credit rating requires extensive, diligent research which is best done by those with the proper qualifications to do it - not some idiot sitting at home in front of his PC with a copy of the Daily Mail and a calculator, and not a Council treasury official either. Kevin Hey writes:

It was clear to me last December that many of the ratings given by credit rating agencies were suspect.

First can I thank you for using your own name. At least we know who you are. Well of course they were suspect, Kevin, and many other people knew that even at the time, but what did you want your council to do about it? Start taking advice from Mystic Meg? Guess? Landsbanki is the second largest Icelandic bank and until a few days ago there were no indications of any problems. At least the chancellor has frozen their UK assets - that's to be welcomed. But if all councils had simply stuck their money in HSBC or bought gold bars, that would have been a huge risk in comparison. What I do come to believe with all this is that it is not the quality of the decision-making that counts, but the perception of the quality. You can hire the best experts to tell you that the world is round, but if it doesn't look round, a lot of people are going to be skeptical. If a ship then sinks trying to prove the world's round, there are some who will say that's proof that it's flat. Feels to me that's pretty much where we are.

Thank you Darren for that insight into a number of things:

1. Firstly for telling us that you have an IQ of 147 - shame you were not able to use your limited intelligence to make a competent strategic decision.
2. Since you seem to be a man of wealth - well hey you are not likely to know the hardship thats on its way.
3. Shame you did not understand that the Icelandic banking system had been considered unstable for the past 18 months - am sure with your 147 IQ you would have been able to read the financial times.
4. By the way Kevin, the County treasurer is on close to £ 80K a year - are we saying that he is someone with NVQ Level 2 and IQ of 147 and he does not understnd the investment risks and contingency strategies.

For your information I too run a major company but believe me I don't plan for just today and I make sure that I employ people with a higher IQ thn 147 - but then I only have an IQ of 180. Ciao

Oh Darren with all your intelectual savvyness why is it that Burnley has oneof the worst issue sof poverty and low quality of life and yet investment from central government has increased year by year i.e NRF and WNF/SRB/ESF etc.

This Institutionalised no-brainer of a Sucker is going down.

The government will do whatever it takes.

The Confidence factories might have to be put on overtime and the jam butty mines will have to be re-opened.

But don't worry the Zombies will still be running the asylum.

Why has Kevins cover been blown,who was he suppose to be.
I never read of any his posts as their were just essays.

I dont think our money is safe in any bank...........

I will be sorry if Kevin Hey does not contribute here again. We do not always agree - indeed what's the point in joining an argument if you agree with what is being said? - but what Kevin writes is thought-provoking and it is polite (and literate), not the case with everyone who posts things!

Actually, Kevin, if your "cover was broken" it was by me, several times and so time ago. I am sorry if that was wrong, it never occured to me that you would want to hide away (not least because a ,lot of what you post here is also sent ot the local press under your full name). So apologies to you if due, and please keep telling me when you think that my colleagues and I can do better!

Tony Greaves

tonygreaves wrote:
I will be sorry if Kevin Hey does not contribute here again. We do not always agree - indeed what's the point in joining an argument if you agree with what is being said? - but what Kevin writes is thought-provoking and it is polite (and literate), not the case with everyone who posts things! Actually, Kevin, if your "cover was broken" it was by me, several times and so time ago. I am sorry if that was wrong, it never occured to me that you would want to hide away (not least because a ,lot of what you post here is also sent ot the local press under your full name). So apologies to you if due, and please keep telling me when you think that my colleagues and I can do better! Tony Greaves

Lord Greaves bottom kissing i did not have you down for - however there is first time for everything. And since you are claiming you are a listening adminstration please answer the following:


1 - Wasting £12.5 million of NRF Funding in five years
2. Upgrading a useless Head of Policy to Assistant Chief Executive and then see him retiring on a higher pension based on his final salary scheme
3 - Highest infant mortality rates in the country and highest rates of unemployment amongst the young
4 - Lowest quality of life amongst the elderly
5. Giving a contract to Liberata when they are on their way out and love the line about the phased jobs bit. The recent call centre operatives are only there for three months and then they will go back to signing on the dole. But I suppose the out of job ex-councillors will need emloyment and then they can be employed at 1 Market Street

NOW IF YOU ARE SAYING THAT ALL OF THIS IN YOUR WORLD IS IMPROVING SERVICES AND EFFICIENCY THEN NO WONDER PENDLE IS THE "**** HOLE" OF LANCASHIRE.

Questions still remain about the use of NRF/WNF to do the Councils statutory services instead of using mainstream monies - as usual a liberal adminstration is pulling the wool over the eyes of people of pendle - bring on the county elections and this time lets through this rubbish to the non-recycling bin.

Now lets se you deal with the real issues - why you and your colleagues have put Pendle on the map for the wrong reasons - by the way is it true that even Capaita turned you down in developing the "dead donkey" 1 Market Street.