THIS week, I thought I’d deliver another of my occasional translation guides to official pronouncements.

You see, it’s come to my attention that there is widespread disappointment over the planned closure of the last of our children’s centres.

The plan came in spite of promises to the contrary.

In the same week, it emerged that four particularly horrible sex offenders, supposedly being monitored by the police, have been off the radar for between five and a dozen years.

The thing we should all remember is that when people in authority – councillors, officials, senior police officers and the like – say certain things, the meaning might be a bit different than it would be if an ordinary person said them.

That is because people in authority are cleverer and generally better than us, and deserve our unstinting respect.

Here are some examples of what they say and what they might mean: They say: “We have no plans to close this community facility.”

This might mean: “We have no plans to close the facility at this moment, especially if there’s a danger that doing so might have implications for us at the ballot box. After the next election, however, all bets are off.”

They say: “If my organisation does this bad thing, I shall tender my resignation.”

They might mean: “I shall indeed tender my resignation, but that does not preclude me from staying on if my friends and colleagues refuse to accept my resignation.”

They say: “There is a role for increased community involvement in this resource, and a holistic approach to its future management.”

They might mean: “We’re making all the staff redundant and planning to ask ordinary people to volunteer for the work instead. If not enough people volunteer, we’ll close the whole shebang, adopt a ‘more in sorrow than in anger’ tone of voice and blame community apathy.”

They say: “The parks of which we have stewardship are a vital resource which we manage on behalf of the people we serve, and we want nothing more than to preserve them for future generations.”

They might mean: “However, running one in particular costs us a packet, and what with Whitehall starving us of cash we need to save every penny we can. Rather than demanding more cash from Whitehall, we might just hive the park off to anybody willing to take it off our hands for 99 years.

“With a bit of luck they’ll respect it, but if one of their conditions for the deal is being allowed to turn it into an overpriced plastic theme park, c’est la vie.”

They say: “We take our job of protecting people from dangerous criminals very seriously indeed.”

They might mean: “But not necessarily seriously enough to prevent a few from going astray. You might want to lock your doors. Oopsie.”