Premier McKeeva Bush returned yesterday evening from weekend financial talks in London, but will leave again on Saturday for next week’s Wednesday and Thursday Overseas Territories conference at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The weekend talks, sought by Mr Bush with Minister for Overseas Territories and MP Henry Bellingham, focused on the formal “Framework for Fiscal Responsibility” (FFR), a territories-wide effort to establish financial ground rules for sustainable revenues and expenditures.

Led by Mr Bush, the delegation included West Bay MLA and top aide Cline Glidden and political adviser Richard Parchment, seeking clarification on a range of issues raised by the proposed “Framework”, still being negotiated by the Cayman Islands government.

“The meeting was arranged a couple of weeks ago, and there is quite a lot of business to be discussed,” said Steve Moore, spokesman in the Office of the Governor.

He said many of the territories had been presented with the FFR,  although sources indicated yesterday that the Turks and Caicos Islands and Bermuda may not have the same document.

Both the British Virgin islands and Anguilla had been approached, however, he said.

In a formal statement released on the eve of the meeting, Mr Bush said the document sought to ensure “effective medium-term planning” while ensuring “value-for-money”, sound risk management and better accountability, all subjects broached in recent months by Cayman Auditor General Alastair Swarbrick.

Without mentioning Mr Swarbrick, however, Mr Bush pointed to government “reservations” about the document, specifically borrowing for the $8 million youth remand centre and construction of schools, none of which will generate revenues.

Additionally, while revenues from Statutory Authorities and government-owned companies, such as Health Services and Cayman Airways, are not part of the framework, their debts are, making the document “overly restrictive”, according to Mr Bush.

“Theses are just examples of the areas of concern, but are not the only ones,” said one top financial adviser. “The FCO has not accepted the changes,” however, he said.

Mr Moore said the UK “hoped all the OTTs” would sign the framework, but that “negotiations had been going on individually, and we have been talking for about a year.

“Cayman,” he said, “is a bit more advanced on the FFR negotiations, and we’d like to get [agreement] by the time of the conference. We’d really like that. We want to get a better picture of what the Cayman Islands might look like,” he said.

Mr Bush could not be reached by press time, but Press Secretary Charles Glidden said a certain urgency attached to the talks: “This thing has to be dealt with, and Mr Bush wanted these discussions, but not during the OTT conference, and Mr Bellingham did not want them on that agenda”.