IT wasn’t so long ago that sleaze was the big issue.

The Conservatives, under Dave, assured us that they would sweep it away and set up a new squeaky clean form of government with openness, transparency, accountability and, that wonder of wonders, localism.

So what happened? In this county we are/were seemingly run by Hereford Futures, something called Hoople, and any number of similarly daftly named, highly camouflaged, unelected, unaccountable bodies and non governmental organisations, all controlled by that spider at the centre of this web of intrigue, the grandiosely titled Herefordshire Council cabinet.

The conservative leader of the council and the chief executive sit on the boards of some of these bodies, spending our money.

What are these bodies? Why are these bodies? They are “arm’s length” arrangements designed to get round the Freedom of Information Act and accountability – being companies they are “secret”

and so are definitely not transparent or open. They are not public bodies so do not fall within the meaning of the act so we can't ask for information, even though they spend our money.

Apparently, even our county monitoring officer can't, or won’t, get at their documents even though they are available at Companies House. The overview and scrutiny committee can’t overview or scrutinise them. Bonkers and wrong, and, above all, stinking of the same old, same old sleaze.

I urge more council tax payers to ask more questions. Even Eric in a Pickle says he relies on us to keep local government up to the mark.

We know councillors won’t scrutinize themselves so it really is up to us.

SIMON BROWN, Birtley, Bucknell.