There's been a great deal of concern amongst our membership in recent months over government plans to set a certain income level for those hoping to bring non-European partners for settlement in the United Kingdom.

At the moment, the figure being bandied about is, I believe, somewhere around £26,000 per annum.

First of all, I should stress that - as far as I am aware - no final decisions have yet been made as regards the implementation of these draconian measures ... nor indeed if they will even be approved.

Anyway ... in an effort to quell the fears of those folk most likely to be affected in the event of the green light being given - and, as a former Local Government Employee, earning a Gross Annual Salary of *£10,386 at the time of my early retiral as a Senior Clerical Assistant in 1993 - I took the liberty, this forenoon, of contacting my local Council's Human Resources Department to enquire what *that amount would equate to in present day terms.

Here's what I discovered:

Almost two decades on, £10,386 would be equivalent to £17 -£18k approximately - at best! Quite a shock, really! And a bit of a wasted effort on my part. But, if nothing else, it proves what I'd long suspected ... £26,000 is nowhere near what the Government claims to be "average". On the contrary, it's still considerably ABOVE average.

That's what so damned unfair about such proposals.