I sit on the LGA Economy and Transport Board. Today I was given the opportunity to present on how we created our bank. I was able to explain the difficulties and more importantly how we overcame them.

I was also able to explain the benefits to SMEs and our pensioners.

I think ours is the only fully commercial bank owned by a local authority despite lots of attempts by local authorities. Given the large pots of money we sit on in our pensions funds, that could be working hard, this is daft.

I am pressing for the LGA to lobby government to review the rules when setting up banks and similar to make it easier when the applicant is a local authority or similar.