THE judgement from the Employment Appeals Tribunal against Bury Council makes an utter mockery of the council’s senior management and our politicians.

Everyone who took an interest knew that the council would lose, except those in charge. What perverse logic suggested that they could win when all other councils around them had quietly backed down.

The problem now is that Bury already needs to make swingeing cuts to its budget and this judgement, though perfectly fair and correct, will lead to more frontline services being cut. Unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be the courage amongst the political leaders to address the underlying problem of too many inadequate senior managers on too much salary.

Bury is one of the smallest metropolitans in the country so why does Bury need to spend £150,000 on its chief executive? The answer obviously can’t be to retain quality staff. And why do we need the assistant chief executive promoted to deputy? And at what cost?

There appears to be something rotten at the core of this authority. The public are not allowed to ask questions at public meetings without prior approval, decisions about what to cut are made behind closed doors, information is published in such a way that the people can’t find it and councillors brazenly shout down any objections in Local Area Partnership meetings. Not exactly democratic.

At no point in all of the discussions about cuts to services has ANY councillor mentioned taking an “expenses” cut, or reducing councillor numbers.

The councillor expenses scheme hasn't been reviewed this year nor any proposals put forward for review next year, yet last year Bury councillors collectively claimed nearly £700,000.

All these “small” instances of lack of sincerity and clarity merely add to the feeling that we are actually under a democratic dictatorship where decisions are made by ill-informed politicians for personal gain and without consideration of the important people — the voters.

Joan Reynolds Meadow Way Tottington