YOUR headline reported that one of the county’s major schools, the Thomas Hardye School, is being underfunded and yet, on the letters page, Hugo Melville tells us in his letter about the gross overpayments of our council leaders. We need education (heavens only knows we do) but we do not need these vastly overpaid people who are so useless that they need to draft in expensive consultants all of the time.

Were they omniscient about their work, and didn’t need to draw in advisers, then high salaries might be justified for council leaders but, as it is, they obviously wish to enjoy the best of both worlds!

Some say you need good people at the top but if the new council continue to engage consultants then they will prove that they are no good and should therefore be replaced.

NIALL SIMPSON

James Road,

Dorchester