Well done for holding officials to account

Sir, I was delighted to read that the Standards Commission for Scotland has decided in favour of Councillor Michael Breslin’s principled stance on councillors’ rights to hold council employees to account for their actions.

A healthy democracy requires more than just voting every so often – it is also essential that we scrutinise those involved with government, at whatever level, in between elections.

At a national level, the select committees of the House of Commons do excellent work in this regard.

Cabinet ministers, civil servants, business leaders – in fact, anyone with a hand in public life – are subjected to incisive questioning.

One spectacular example of his process has exposed the looting of the pension funds of thousands of shop workers and may result in the stripping of the knighthood from the perpetrator.

Anyone who thinks that this is a bit far removed from our own quiet backwater in Argyll should think again as our chief executive is paid almost as much as our prime minister, after all.

I can see no reason why, however highly they think of themselves, our own local ‘high heid yins’ should not be similarly examined.

So thank you, Councillor Breslin, for sticking your head above the parapet on our behalf and I am delighted that at least one other, Councillor George Freeman, has spoken in his support. Are there any others?

Stuart White, Struan Cottage, Minard.