ONCE again Coun Clive Smith has demonstrated his amazing grasp of accountancy.

In his letter (Your Letters, July 21), he claimed Malvern Town Council had only been able to finance its Council Tax reductions "by subsidising its tax precept from its reserves".

Where does he get his figures from? When MTAG took control of the town council there were no reserves, only debts in the form of loans totalling £490,000 which the previous council had borrowed to pay for the purchase and refurbishment of the Belle Vue offices.

Thanks to careful management, we are now in position where we are discussing whether we should repay some or all of these loans. At the same time we have brought the charge for a Band D property down from £85 to £56 and we plan to spend around £220,000 this year on asset renewal and refurbishment.

Clive Smith also boasts about the district council's achievement in avoiding any more "inflation-busting Council Tax rises". Does he realise that since April 1997 inflation has only gone up by 26.5%? The district council's tax has gone up by 119.3%. Some inflation, some busting.

According to Clive Smith, the district council's economies are being achieved through "various means, such as our senior management review, toilet closures and the imposition of car parking charges in the evenings". The last two are hardly matters to boast about, you might think.

As for the senior management review, the mind boggles. A few weeks ago Coun Di Rayner announced that reducing senior management posts from 14 to seven would save £500,000 which would be spent on new and improved services - not, heaven forbid, on actually reducing the Council Tax.

Now we learn that half of these savings will go to the remaining managers in the form of additional pay to reflect their increased responsibilities. In the meantime, the estimated cost of redundancy and pension enhancement has gone up, so it will cost £651,000 to save £250,000.

Clive, bring your financial skills to bear on that one. At the same time tell us why the management restructuring will take three years to implement. If the posts are no longer needed, why not make the changes now?

Alistair Macmillan, Alexandra Lane, Malvern.