TRANS-PAREN-CY. Understand? Let's spell it out, slowly and clearly, because given this week's events some of our elected representatives don't understand what it means.

Once upon a time, chief fire officer Mark Yates had a dodgy back and decided to pay £5,090 to get surgery done privately rather than wait 12 weeks on the NHS.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, until some members of the fire authority thought it'd be a good idea to hand him £3,000 from taxpayer's coffers behind closed doors.

Whatever the rights of wrongs of the decision, what really perplexed, no alarmed The Source was the way the whole sorry saga was handled by a couple of those small band of councillors who made the decision.

Before this newspaper made sure the fire authority gave us the names of the quartet who debated it, Brigadier Peter Jones, the vice-chairman, told us he was "on holiday in the Caribbean" at the time.

One follow-up phone call later, having duly told him we did indeed have the names of those involved, which included Brigadier Jones, he admitted he wasn't away at all. Nice try.

But he might want to have a word with his fellow fire authority colleague, David Taylor, who was also officially named as the second of the four councillors involved in the saga.

Cllr Taylor still maintains he can't remember a thing about it, which is very strange, given that the cash was only signed off at the end of October.

Should we warn the NHS there's a serious cause of amnesia breaking out?

Do these people think we're stupid?

* MIKE Layland, who served around 44 years as a Worcester councillor, is celebrating this week after getting Freedom of the City - but he has one regret.

It was Mike who, backed in 1972 as City Chamberlain, decided that councillors at the Guildhall should be separated into political parties, breaking an old pre-war tradition which used to see them seated in rows based purely on seniority.

Under pressure from an ever-growing Labour group, he went with the change and that was that.

Instead of the 'pups' at one end and the old grizzled dogs in the other, we slowly saw the birth of today's Punch and Judy politics, safe in the knowledge the guy you're slagging off isn't sitting right next to you.

"It was the worst mistake I ever made, if I could go back and change it I would," bemoans Mike.

So THAT'S why last month's full council meeting went on until 1am.

* Worcestershire County Council's £20 million superfast broadband project isn't pleasing everyone.

Councillor David Tibbutt, speaking a city council scrutiny meeting on Wednesday night, said: "I just can't understand, as an ordinary bloke who doesn't run a business, or watch any high definition films, why would I want it?"

The irrepressible Pauline Harris, who is in charge of the project and is often seen gliding around County Hall with a grin on her face, had the perfect retort.

"I'm sure we didn't wait for everyone to have cars before we built the roads," she said.