We need to be reassured I NOTICE the recent fuss over the officer re-shuffle recommendations by the council's "head boy", David Corker.

People have every right to expect that promotions at the town hall, even if they are on a temporary basis, should be made on merit and not merely the (often subjective) recommendations of a select few or even worse, one person alone.

Any such decisions when made by a body which is funded by the general public, have to be watertight and above criticism they should also have the full backing of the majority of the elected members (i.e. the councillors).

It is also important that councillors are not presented with a fait accompli as such a situation could compromise future performance.

Just recently the auditor told the council that David Corker should not formulate the council's response to the district auditor's inquiries following several objections raised to the city council's accounts. Despite this officers then used more of your money to query this legally, not surprisingly the lawyers, backed the auditor and more public cash had been wasted on a whim. So, and despite being told not to get involved, David Corker then explained that all the available and suitable officers were very busy but in his opinion Mike Jones (commercial services head) was the man best placed to formulate the council's response to the auditor and so it came to pass!

Now Mr Jones features again in Mr Corker's recommendations as the man to handle the additional duties of being deputy chief executive. We have not been told of how much more cash these already overworked staff will be receiving (but I assume they will be rewarded handsomely for the additional responsibility).

In light of this situation can we have the council's unreserved promise that we can completely rely on the impartiality of the response to the auditor? (I imagine, for example, it would be quite difficult for any officer to have to present information that may be less than flattering about the boss who had recently promoted them). Also, despite having been asked for a response to the objections last November, the council has explained that no response will be forthcoming until the end of March at the earliest. With the additional burdens now being loaded onto Mr Jones' shoulders surely that could further jeopardise the response time to the auditor and thus present a further delay before the public gets to know the truth again leaving the concern of the public playing a poor second fiddle to what is seen to be important at the town hall.

Nick Westwell

MBI representative

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.