IN Your Letters (November 11), Sheila Collis asked for a reply to a letter in your edition of October 28 from Alistair Macmillan concerning the high number of officers on Malvern Hills District Council receiving very much higher salaries than those working for Wychavon. Could I suggest she visits the MHDC website?

Here it is admitted the council has only received a fair rating for performance. Staff absenteeism is high, even when only compared to other councils (much worse when compared to private companies), planning applications, housing benefit fraud, payment of invoices etc are all below standard.

So here we have it, an inefficient council that makes the cardinal mistake of thinking the inefficiency can be covered up by employing more staff at higher salaries.

Council staff have very good working conditions, they have nearly twice as many paid bank holidays as other members of the working community and their pension is of a standard way in excess of that received by employees of private companies.

Why then do they consider that it is acceptable to take time off work at the expense of ratepayers, many of whom will be earning less than them or living on a state pension?

Sadly, what does not appear in the auditors report is a report on the Splash project, which I believe was supposed to cost £0.5 million and ended up costing £1.2 million.

I have listened and read articles by councillors saying the number of meetings, symposiums and other duties they have performed. Never once have I heard one accepting any responsibility for the inefficiencies of the council or reminding us that they claim allowances for every meeting etc they attend. I assume that the average payment received by councillors last year was in the order of £7,000, while Coun Wells, as leader, would have received about £20,000. Not a bad payment compared to the £5,000 or so state pension. So what can we do?

In the first place, I would suggest the district auditor is asked to examine the Splash project and determine where the responsibility for the fiasco lies and what, if any, action can be taken against those responsible.

I believe there should be no politics in local government but if there is, that the political party should ensure that volunteers for position as councillor have suitable business experience. I very much doubt that we require the number of councillors we have and maybe nine or ten would suffice.

Let me ask councillors one question. Are you ashamed of the performance of MHDC this last year?

MR F R LOCKE, Garrett Bank, Welland.