As Gloria Gaynor once said (and my colleagues did on Monday)–you're back! Yes, I am (but not from outer space).

Thanks to Phil for looking after things while I was away–but I need to pick him up on one thing. He mentioned ‘HMS Communications’ when he should have known that we’re a ‘starship’.

Way back when (it’s ages ago) I started writing my captain’s log, we played on the Star Trek ‘theme’ and got in as many clichés as we could.

Hence that’s why we’re a starship and not a sailing ship.

You’ll recall that Phil talked about change–change that we’d like to make, or perhaps, given where we are now, change that we’ll have to make.

I’d like to continue that discussion today.

Before I go any further, I need to ask you–dear loyal reader–to brace yourself against a fixed object.

I’m about to say something that even I didn’t expect to.

Ready?

I acknowledge, with some understanding and appreciation, about what the Tax Payers Alliance has been saying in recent days about things like public spending and transparency.

No, you didn’t misunderstand that.

I can see where the TPA is coming from.

It, of course, is an organisation I have been fairly critical of in previous logs, especially over its use of the Freedom of Information Act.

But today, I can see why it takes a particular stance.

Here’s why.

Over the last few weeks the coalition government has been increasingly talking about the ‘pain’ that lies ahead with regard to spending on public services.

We already know about the plans to save £6 billion this year. For us at Leeds City Council it means we’ll be getting £15 million less than we’d budgeted for this year. Coupled with all the other financial pressures we face as a council this is going to be a serious challenge.

Last week, the most senior people in the organisation met for their regular corporate leadership team meeting to discuss how this might be achieved.

Let’s be honest–it’s not going to be easy.

We’ve found efficiencies of £100m over the last five years, so some might argue that we’re pretty lean already. But it’s clear that the future means some, perhaps many, difficult decisions are going to have to be made.

In his first media interview since taking over as leader, Councillor Wakefield was asked about what it is the council will have to stop doing.

Clearly the priority has to be protecting the most vulnerable in our great city.

Cllr Wakefield told me that we should be ‘talking things down rather than up’ and that we all have a role in managing people’s expectations about what services we may not be able to provide in future.

For us as communicators I think that we’re going to find ourselves talking more about the bad news and less about the good news over the coming months.

Sorry to be such a doom and gloom merchant, but we’ve got to be realistic.

I’m sorry to say that cuts are inevitable now.

On a slightly lighter note, I need to offer my thanks to the team of fantastic people in Civic Hall who keep the place sparkling and clean.

I say this because the lid on my fruit salad plastic carton flew open while I was walking back to the office yesterday and the contents ended up on the carpet in the antechamber.

The only thing left in the box was a lone strawberry.

OK, so I was disappointed that no one rushed to my aid and the one colleague who did walk past while my grapes were tumbling across the floor only stepped round them instead of offering to help.

However, hats off to the cleaners because all it took to restore my fruit salad to its original form was a quick rinse under the tap. There was no carpet fluff or other nasties to fish out first.

I suggest that’s down to the vigorous hoovering the carpet gets each day.

Finally, it seems I’ve been rumbled.

Robert from the youth offending service emails:

"Enlightening as ever, but I was amazed to see an apparent slip-up–particularly surprising in the light of Andy’s recent appearance on "The One Show" regarding plain English. So "Taking up the reigns" ??? "Reins", surely, unless Cat was ruling rather than steering! (It’ll come as no surprise to you that I’m well known for my pedantry)."

It’s a fair cop … (did you see what I did there? [what with Robert being from the youth offending team!])–yep, I got it wrong.

Thank you Robert for the gentle reprimand.

But as my mum tells me: ‘Andy you can’t expect to be amazingly brilliant all the time.’ And we all know that mums are always right!