Financial pressures are just one of the challenges facing councils in Wales, according to the head of CIPFA Wales. Maria Jones told The MJ, following the tight Comprehensive Spending Review, there would be pressures to deliver the One Wales Agreement formed by the Labour and Plaid Cymru coalition government. Speaking after the annual CIPFA Wales conference held last week in Llandudno, Ms Jones said councils across Wales were now ‘entering a period of retrenchment', and facing quite a challenge to deal with this. ‘There will need to be significant savings across local government, and capital spend in Wales will be quite difficult for the next three years,' she said. Other issues addressed at the conference included the shape of governance in Wales and how the Government for Wales Act was allowing the Welsh Assembly Government to be more ‘proactive' in looking at the Welsh landscape. But the stability of the coalition government was also discussed. Dafydd Wigley, honorary president of Plaid Cymru, recently said he believed the days of the coalition, which consisted of ‘unexpected partners', could be numbered.
