POSSIBLY, though I doubt it, Mr Hall-Jones (Postbag, July 28) was expressing some sour grapes after being passed over as leader of the Malvern Hills District Council; but he was surely right to bring to our attention the possibility that other councillors could potentially be making themselves a nice little earner out of expenses claimed.

No doubt also there will be a chorus of councillors claiming they would be reduced to penury and destitution were expenses not to be paid.

I suggest a flat fee of £1 per meeting attendance should be paid; if that's not enough, maybe they could share a car.

Mr Hall-Jones could even propose at the next council meeting that expenses should be £1 each and see who votes against him, their names to be minuted and referred to Social Security. In these computerised days, it would be a trifling inconvenience for a clerk (sorry, logistics executive) to tot up the running total of expenses paid to each councillor on, say, a three month basis to be offered to the Malvern Gazette for publication.

Mr Hall-Jones shouldn't worry unduly about the permanent staff - the ones who tell the councillors what they can do and then put it in their in-trays - they have their own expenses budget, I believe.

A more radical critic than I am might suggest this is all so much small beer, and that if you are going down the road of questioning council costs, you could halve the number of councillors, of staff, of meetings, of accommodation units, of consultants, of visits and whatnot else without there being a blind bit of difference in the level of service given to you and I, who actually pay for the whole caboodle.

C R Cheeseman, "Mellbreak", 177 Wells Road, Malvern. (via e-mail).