Sir,

Governments, municipal councils and community services have always had a last get-out. You accept the right of the community to demand their rights and if no obvious reason to refuse them you promise to minute them. If there is an election pending or a change of Government is on the horizon, you then 'promise that all the pleas will be implemented'.

That does not mean that you will do anything as you have the convenient exit door - set up a committee. The bigger the committee the better. It can be justified by being representative of more people and more minor ethnic/religious groups. It also means that a clear cut decision by that committee is pretty remote - by experience, the best and most effective committee will have a membership of one.

But as a back-stop, just in case the large committee came to the decision that you did not want, you can stretch any decision time well on into eternity. You set-up sub-committees, special specialist working teams. Each of these will produce a document that will have to be vetted and agreed by each of the other sub-committees and working teams. If, by sheer chance, a final draft is forthcoming, that can be taken back to the original committee for further discussion, and (maybe!) approved.

But, by that time, the rest of the electors have long since forgotten what started it all off and no decision would be meaningful.

Could it be that the Local Health Board and the Local Implementation Group work by the same procedure manual?

Ivor Jenkins,

23 Dombey Road,

Poynton,

Cheshire.