THERE used to be an old saying that was popular in pre-decimalisation days: look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.

I believe its roots are in the immediate post-Second World War period when there wasn’t a lot of cash about.

Maybe in the doom and gloom of the current credit crunch as we stand on the brink of rampant recession, this phrase ought to be resurrected.

May I also suggest that our local councils put themselves in the vanguard of this Renaissance.

I fail to see how Bucks County Council cannot understand the appalling irony in saving cash through its scheme of switching off our street lights and then splashing out £1,350 on several of them going to a black tie dinner in London at which the authority has been nominated for an award for the lights scheme.

Council spokesman Alison Donovan gave a puzzling sort of response: “The council is going to attend and it will be the council that is paying for it.”

Sorry? I thought it was our money and the council was just a body elected and employed to spend it to our best advantage.

In these days when many families are having to scrimp and cut back on luxuries because of the pressure on their finances, it borders on the obscene that our elected representative are splashing out on a jolly to the Café Royal in London. It seems it has lost sight of two things.

1: It’s actually OUR money and not theirs 2: Prudence is the mantra in the current economic climate But of course the authority will wave aside these objections and criticisms with the usual sort of phrase trotted out when challenged about spending: it’s only a fraction of our budget.

Well that cuts no ice with the electors I’m afraid. It’s time the council started looking after OUR pennies.

Talking of ice – one interesting fact to leak into the public domain during the economic meltdown is that £10m of our money is locked up in Iceland’s collapsed banks (£5m invested by the county council, £2.5m by Wycombe District Council and £2.5m by Thames Valley Police).

The county’s chief executive Chris Williams seems confident that we will get our £5m back, but no one is saying much about the rest.

What is interesting is that the district council has said the other £72.5m it has invested is safe!

Firstly, is anything ‘safe’ in this current fragile period?

Secondly, £75m? The council has £75m of our money locked up in investment accounts?

I realise we need a contingency fund, but when we hear the authority pleading poverty as it cuts our services and raises our taxes in the new budget such sentiments are going to have a very hollow ring about them.