I AM surprised to read that Coun Richards (Lib Dem) (Postbag, June 16) has become an expert on the proceedings of Malvern Hills District Council within days of his election.

Now the Liberal Democrats are a small minority on the new Council instead of holding half the seats I suppose we must expect new spokespersons without experience to lecture us on good government. May I correct some obvious errors?

In the last Council, the Executive Board contained three Liberals, two Conservatives and one genuine Independent.

It was I, not Tom Wells, who suggested the timetable that Council agreed to review the trial arrangements.

It was Conservatives supported by the one Labour member, and not the Liberal Democrats, who were most critical of the trial arrangements, who changed the calling-in process and were most anxious to review them in the new Council.

Whatever arrangements may be agreed it is a fact the councillors have to speak to officers just as ministers speak to civil servants.

If those discussions cannot be held in the Executive Board because it is not a 'private' session, they will obviously be held elsewhere. That may mean that the Executive Board decides how it will vote in a private briefing and then actually votes in a public session.

That was the farce enacted by Labour-controlled councils all over the country for years which some of us hoped the new system would break and we wanted to avoid in Malvern.

The trial arrangement at Malvern worked because Executive Board members trusted each other and, generally, other councillors trusted the Executive Board. That innovative luxury in local government appears to have ended already.

COUN ROGER HALL-JONES (Conservative), Abbey Road, Malvern.