BEST value, increasing accountability, pro-active strategies, listening roadshows - the politicians and bureaucrats churn out endless platitudes in an effort to convince us all that they are serving the public interest.

Let me tell you how it really is.

Sacked former tourism David Christley won an industrial tribunal which described the council's case against him as "substantially and procedurally unfair."

It was a damning report. The council's case was torn to shreds and Christley was awarded nearly £29,000.

But it didn't end there. With invincible arrogance former council leader Stan Henig issued press releases which not only repeated the discredited allegations but called for no "recurrences" of such behaviour.

As journalists we could not believe what we were reading. Repeating the charges that had all but been dismissed by a tribunal and using the word "recurrence" looked very much like a potential libel to us. We immediately warned the then council leader and senior officers that they were possibly exposing the authority to further financial loss.

For if Christley were to successfully sue more taxpayers' cash would be at risk and they'd already wasted enough in our humble opinion.

We wrote to them again to emphasise our concern - once again they chose to ignore this advice.

Mr Henig has, not surprisingly, received a writ for defamation which it appears he intends not to defend himself but instead has now passed on to the council's insurers to deal with. To clarify the situation, the Citizen this week asked senior public servants the following questions:

Did councillors or officers take advice from the council's legal department?

If legal advice was sought, what advice was given at the time?

These questions are straightforward and in the public interest. The officers' reply was depressingly familiar.

They told us: "We will not be responding to your questions." So much for openness and accountability.

So, Mr Henig refuses to accept the findings of the independent tribunal, refuses to accept independent warnings that his statement could expose the authority to a financial loss and, by passing it onto the council's insurers, appears to accept no personal responsibility for his actions.

Should Christley win his case (and looking at the evidence he's in a strong position) and the insurance company pay out, you can bet any increase in premiums will not be met directly by councillors or officers, but by you, the council tax payers - and why not you've been left with their bill so many times in the past surely you wouldn't mind just one more time!

Somehow, it just doesn't seem right.

If someone was to get into a car without brakes, ignore warnings that it had no brakes and then crash the car - would the insurers pay?

Some might call it reckless.

That's why we need to know the truth, we need our questions answering and then, maybe, we'll begin to see some real accountability at the town hall.

We are proud to be the only local newspaper telling readers how things really work ay the town hall.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.