HAS Bury's Labour Council developed a death wish?

Following complaints about residents paying for congratulatory banners, electronic signs, calendars and free newspapers, now the job adverts are displaying the same slogans. It is again costing us money to tell would-be applicants that Bury is "the most improved council in the country". It does not say it has moved from "weak" to "fair". A glance at the job adverts in the press illustrates this.

However, as if this was not enough, the advert for the new £47,000-a-year post of assistant director of social services for strategic support must contain the most unfortunate set of statements ever seen in an advert for such a senior professional post. The kind of person we are seeking, apparently, has problems in naming their pet dog, in choosing a Sunday paper, and deciding where to go on holiday; there are 28 lines like this.

In the same advert, for another senior post in social services, it gets worse. We appeal to people who have problems choosing their lottery numbers and selecting a ring tone for their mobile phone, and so it goes on. One wonders if people who have problems choosing their own clothes, their children's names or their radio station, are really capable of addressing the problems encountered by vulnerable clients who are needing help from mature professional staff in a social services department.

The serious point is that this kind of worrying advert costs us real money. It is not a spoof. This social services advert, for one post which some might question being filled at this time when we are desperate to find savings, and the social services budget is over-spent, appears in a number of newspapers. A total cost of £13,000 would not be an exaggeration for advertising one post, plus the payment to the advertising agency who thinks up such controversial wording.

All this is going on at a time when we should be making hard choices about cutting staffing numbers rather than creating new posts.

A performance review officer on £27,000 will, once appointed, be glad to know that they are to be given a performance review assistant on £18,000 in a "specially created post" in the chief executive's department. Not to be outdone, the education department has also created a post of recruitment strategy officer on almost £30,000.

All this expenditure on new posts and expensive adverts might suggest that there is no financial crisis at all, and that the rumours of cuts and council tax increases are just Labour scares. The other possibility is that Labour has given up any pretence of fiscal control and is leaving us to sort out the mess. Certainly Bury deserves better, and soon!

COUNCILLOR ROY-E. WALKER,

Conservative Group leader.