Cut senior council staff

From: Dave Ellis, Magdalen Lane, Hedon.

RE the levels of senior management in local authorities.

As well as removing the costly figure head of chief executive officers in local authorities, there are many other senior staff who also command high salaries for what job they do, compared to the private sector (John Horne, The Yorkshire Post, November 30).

These days council leaders give statements to the media, rather than chief executive officers. Another reason to question why those senior officers are needed?

There are many examples in local authorities across the UK of senior officers with grand job titles!

Within the East Riding of Yorkshire Council, there is a position of senior committee manager which implies there are committee managers, committee officers and assistant officers to organise various monthly meetings for councillors and internal senior management team meetings.

Local taxpayers need to ask the question if these senior roles are still necessary to run decreasing services provided by local authorities?

The savings in salaries of one of these senior positions could provide three operational staff, who actually interface with council tax payers, either in customer services/library centres, or working in key services or highway maintenance. being in Last of the Summer Wine. The pair used to park up chatting and nodding off till the end of the shift.

They used to film quite a bit around our area and one day a neighbour at the bottom of the lane had been a victim of theft, again a regular occurrence.

After yet another theft he saw a Panda car coming round The Green at Clayton West and flagged it down.

The police wound the car window down to speak to him, and he proceeded to tell them about the theft.

After he had had his say, the policeman said: “We’re not police, we’re actors in Last of the Summer Wine.”

He said he could have crawled into a hole with embarrassment.