I was appalled to read a statement from David Wernick in an item entitled 'Council wins delay on tenders' published in the Borehamwood Times recently.

He is quoted as saying at a leisure committee meeting "the ratepayer benefits from CCT (compulsive competitive tendering).

The only people who suffer are feather-bedded local authority employees". We were concerned at that meeting with the employment of leisure assistants who run our pools and leisure centres.

This is a job which is hardly overpaid and which will be many people's only contact with a council employee.

Anyone who works for a local authority will have seen the effects of CCT and know how exploitative of the employee it was.

Authorities were obliged to accept the lowest tender for a service whether it be refuse collection or cleaning schools.

It does not take a genius to realise that one of the ways to make savings is to lower conditions of service and rates of pay for the workforce. This is how many companies won a contract.

I am a teacher and worked with cleaners who lost sick pay, holiday pay and were told to work longer hours for less pay.

The jobs involved in CCT contracts were often not well-paid to start with and many people just could not live on such low wages.

This often resulted in a large turnover of employees and the work being done by an inexperienced workforce with low morale.

Thank goodness the Labour Government ended such a barbaric system and brought in the concept of Best Value. We are now free to actually look at other aspects of services to the public as well as how cheaply it can be provided.

We can be looking at value for money, a concept that is surely beneficial to the council tax payer. We can provide an excellent service and pay employees the proper rate for the job. Councillor Wernick obviously does not have any respect for many ordinary working people.

"Feather-bedded local authority employees", Councillor Wernick! Surely not even you really believe that. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Hertsmere Borough Councillor

Di Hoeksma,

Chairman of leisure committee.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.