I ATTENDED a meeting in Milford Haven on this subject tonight.

The PCC has to make big cuts – so do all the other councils in Wales – and the council’s response is to hire a London-based law firm, Winkworth Sherwood, to advise the council on how to reduce its costs. It’s principal suggestion is to stop paying central government business rates and VAT by forming a “Local Charitable Trust”.

If this suggestion is taken up, the council will feel they have done a good job, although it will involve six cross-county consultation meetings, many hours preparing agreements and lots of council scrutiny time all to achieve no change in the final delivered service!

If Winkworth Sherwood were to go around all 22 unitary authorities in Wales providing the same advice, they would make possibly in excess of £500,000 and the Welsh treasury would lose around £15,000,000 – if we take Pembroke as a typical unitary authority.

This is crazy. At a time when the Conservative government is trying to clamp down on tax evasion schemes, is it not incredible that our council is considering such schemes as promoted by private legal advisors?

If the council were to spend the money that they would save – by not doing the consultations and not employing expensive legal advisors – on operating the leisure centres more effectively at a time when the “Olympic stimulus” is at its highest, we would all be net gainers.

By trying to privatise leisure services in “Local Charitable Trusts” run uncertainly by untried trustees, Wales could be millions of pounds worse off and Pembrokeshire leisure centre users no better off.

Or have I misunderstood what they are proposing?

RICHARD BAKER

Broad Haven