Well another day, another announcement. Last week one of our Ministers at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) announced £130million or so to ensure the over 60’s could swim for free. Immediately I contacted the Council officials and said ‘waste no time and find out how we get our fair share.’

So far so good but, of course, the announcement lacked detail. To date, we don’t know how the money is to be allocated or by whom. We don’t know which section of DCMS will be overseeing the process or, indeed what the process of allocation will be. So understandably my heart sank. No doubt, the application process will require us to submit goals and targets for swimming episode outcomes and annual (if not more frequent) returns for monitoring progress. On top of that I suspect Barnet will not be ‘deprived enough’ and get very little cash. Hopefully, I will be proved wrong.