THE front page headlines August 19 "We don't have a choice" implies that a sense of reality and responsibility is finally starting to prevail at Swindon Borough Council.

Council heads have been told if they don't make savings some staff may lose their jobs.

For many years Swindon Borough Council has had the unenviable reputation of being synonymous with incompetence, inefficiency, ineffectiveness and extremely poor value for money. It has been severely criticised for poor performance and labelled as one of the worst performing council's in the country by the Audit Commission.

Year after year Swindon's council tax increases have vastly outstripped inflation.

Pensioners and low income families have staged protests to condemn these persistent excessive and extortionate increases in council tax. It is morally wrong and indefensible to expect such people to subsidise a failing organisation run by wasteful, incompetent bureaucrats.

Senior managers have persistently failed to properly manage valuable resources as was proved recently by the £1.9 million overspend on Social Services. I would therefore ask the following question.

Are council managers the right people to give a full and proper assessment of the current situation or should there be a completely independent review by an external organisation?

There needs to be a full and detailed assessment of all services to ascertain whether they are necessary, whether work is being duplicated or whether paper pushing bureaucrats are performing pointless and wasteful tasks at the expense of hard-working taxpayers.

There should be detailed inspections of supervisory and managerial positions to determine whether the incumbents are fully qualified to do the job they are doing. There may be square pegs in round holes. The salaries of management should be fully assessed to determine whether their pay is commensurate to their jobs.

Swindon Council has numerous hard working and dedicated essential frontline staff such as care workers and teachers whose jobs must be protected so that they can continue to provide valuable services to the local community. If possible such jobs should be increased in numbers. Maximum resources must reach frontline services.

The council is absolutely right to take control of this unacceptable situation.

K KANE

Wroughton