IT’S been a funny old week. Not funny ha-ha but funny peculiar. Downright strange, in fact.

Firstly, we’ve had the odd case of councils attempting to save money by pulling their social workers out of the Serennu Children’s Centre in Newport.

Both Newport and Torfaen councils had the same idea buried away in their budget proposals.

Moving social workers out of Serennu would have saved Newport £24,000 a year in rent. What Torfaen hope to save is unclear, as the council appears to have taken the decision to keep schtum on the matter and let Newport take all the flak.

Regular readers will know this newspaper has long-standing relationship with Serennu and its fundraising arm, the Sparkle Appeal.

The appeal was the Argus’ official charity for many years and our readers helped raise the funds needed to build the centre. Our readers are currently helping to raise £10,000 for an equipment library at the centre.

The whole purpose of building Serennu was to provide a multitude of services for disabled children in south Gwent in one place, replacing the previous model that saw parents having to transport their youngsters to a variety of venues depending on the services they needed to access.

Moving any service out of Serennu risks destroying the very reason for the centre being built in the first place.

When we broke the story last week, Sparkle trustees and parents reacted with fury to the councils’ proposals.

And then something strange happened.

Newport council’s first reaction to our report was to issue a robust defence of its proposals. The statement, from cabinet member Cllr Debbie Wilcox, was even headed: “What the council’s budget saving proposal actually means.”

At the weekend, Sparkle’s trustees issued a line-by-line rebuttal of the council statement.

By Monday, the council was reacting again, but this time in far more conciliatory fashion and in the guise of council leader Bob Bright who appeared to have pulled rank on Cllr Wilcox.

And by Tuesday the matter was resolved, with Cllr Bright doing a deal with the Aneurin Bevan Health Board (which runs the Serennu centre) over rent and Newport’s Serennu-based social workers remaining in situ.

Quite what prompted the council’s change of approach is difficult to judge, but Cllr Bright deserves kudos for taking charge of the issue and finding a solution.

And then there is the second strange happening this week. The odd case of council mergers.

Nobody seems to have an inkling about the future shape of local government in Wales.

And at the top of the ‘no ideas’ list sits the Welsh Government.

Just over a year ago, the Williams Commission delivered its report into the future of public services in Wales. Central to its recommendations was a series of mergers that would see the number of Welsh councils reduced from 22 to around a dozen.

The Commission wanted to see existing councils merged on the basis of the level of European grant aid to which they were entitled.

Gwent would have seen Torfaen, Blaenau Gwent and Caerphilly merge into one authority, with Newport merging with Monmouthshire.

The Welsh Government gave councils until last Easter to comply with the recommendations. That deadline was then extended to the summer. And then political bruiser Leighton Andrews was brought back into Carwyn Jones’ cabinet to force the mergers through.

In the meantime, though, councils like Newport, Monmouthshire and Caerphilly rejected mergers, while Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent proposed a voluntary merger, as did a number of other authorities.

And then Mr Andrews threw his hand-grenade, rejecting the merger proposals volunteered by councils – even those recommended by the Williams Commission.

The situation is ludicrous. Councils like Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent have wasted valuable time and money negotiating a potential merger only to see Mr Andrews change the goalposts.

If the Welsh Government has a blueprint for the future of local government (and I very much doubt it has), then it should reveal its hand and put its plans in place.

Councils have enough on their plates attempting to deliver huge savings without having to worry about this ongoing farce.