Many of us are being led to believe that in economic terms, things are getting better. Not that I have noticed! Have you?

The cost-of-living pressures on ordinary households across Monmouthshire – and Wales – are certainly not easing and every week local authorities like mine are having to make unwelcome choices in what help and support we can offer residents.

Many services have been pared back further than we would wish and from where I stand there is no end in sight.

Wales as whole does particularly badly when it comes to support from central government.

That’s partly due to the way the age-old Barnett formula works against us. This is the arrangement the Treasury uses to adjust the amounts of public expenditure allocated to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Even from the word go more than 40 years ago the formula’s ‘inventor’, Joel Barnett, realised it was flawed. But it was only ever intended as a temporary solution. Today it is still in place, sharing public money unfairly across the UK.

And the fact that for the last 13 years we have been under the yoke of a Tory austerity-loving national government chimes a particularly hollow note for Wales with a Labour administration.

Despite all this we are doing what we can for the hardest hit of our residents.

Britain will not feel like one of the richest countries in the world for those among us who are having to feed themselves using our food banks: one in each of our main towns. We have community fridges too which rescue good quality, surplus food, free of charge from local food retailers, producers, growers, restaurants and others.

And like other local authorities we have a range of support services, to help residents where we can with housing, money worries, and other aspects of everyday life.

During school the summer break we adopted schemes to help families with children and it is telling that they have all been over-subscribed.

Our local authority, like others, works in concert with a whole range of other voluntary, charitable and targeted support organisations to try to offer help where it is most needed. But I cannot pretend that this is always nearly enough.

When I was made leader 15 months ago, I wanted to make a positive difference and our team are working hard to do just that. But sometimes it feels like we are doing that with one arm tied behind our back by circumstances way beyond the boundaries of our lovely county.