Over the past few weeks and even months there has been a lot of hand wringing in the council offices.

It has a large council debt to finance and money is very short, so short that care centres have been shut down.

We have seen the protests outside the council offices at various meetings. One scrutiny meeting the public question time was taken up by questions from people asking what was going on and could the centres be spared.

No, was the answer; they had to make cuts and so the centres were signed away. With all that in mind, you can imagine how surprised I was when I read that the council, in its wisdom, had given £554,000 to one of its ‘partners’, called Forward Swindon. Am I right to assume that the council pays the salary of the officials of this ‘partner’ firm? And if that is correct, what is this money for?

Funny how money can be found at a drop of a hat like that, but care centres can’t be saved.

T Reynolds Wheeler Avenue, Swindon