So Carmarthenshire County Council want our ideas on how they can save money.

How about they stop wasting what they have got on unnecessary legal costs?

You may well have overlooked a short report in the Guardian of the council asking magistrates for 238 orders for non-payment of council tax.

Of those 92 were withdrawn and 29 others paid. What that means is not clear.

But by far the greater number were unnecessary and legal department staff must have spent hours, if not days, preparing pointless paperwork and paying for unneeded documents.

I am interested because they did it to me.

This year’s tax demand arrived early and my cheque stood in an envelope for some weeks as I was too ill to go out to the post. Eventually I got it away.

Once the cheque was posted I thought no more of it.

No problem for the council. They were still getting more than two-thirds of the cash in advance.

All was forgotten until several days later I received a summons for non-payment.

There is something seriously wrong with council practices when they cannot check up to date figures.

I would assume that would just involve pressing a button and looking at a computer screen, but perhaps Carmarthenshire’s computers run slow - two or three days slow, perhaps.

Maybe they need to upgrade to modern technology; an abacus, possibly.

In 40 years of court reporting I have seen many non-payment of rates courts. They always used to be from the previous year, now it seems Carmarthenshire are too greedy to wait that long.

They would rather waste our money.

Two months on and I have heard nothing from the council - ignorant lot.

As I told the magistrates when tendering a not guilty plea they should demand greater proof from the council.

If they ask for 238 orders but withdraw 92 their summonses can only be described as lies.