Inertia means staff issues lack urgency

Dear Sir,

Your editorial on paid leave of absence for senior offi cers at Cheshire East Council describes clearly the current situation.

What it doesn't do is suggest remedies, probably because they are not obvious or easy to implement.

It seems to me that one issue is that problems do not come to the relevant committees until well into the process.

There seems to be an element of inertia in the system that fi lters out possible impending problems until it is no longer possible to ignore them.

While respecting the autonomy of senior offi cers working in the public sector, there should be systems in place that can give warnings to all concerned so that possible troubles can be investigated in time for the perpetrators to change their ways.

We all err from time to time and a fully functioning organisation, whether public or private, catches these in time for errors to be rectified before processes become unstoppable.

Yours faithfully,

(DR) PETER HIRST

Middlewich