No, Philip Sellers, it is not ‘obvious that the finance director is number two in the organisational structure’ (‘There must be room at the top’, Letters June 4–10).
Most objective people would argue for the right of each local authority to be allowed to form its own management structure free from outside interference. It should certainly not be for CIPFA to advance the cause of its own members without producing a shred of evidence to show that local authorities managed in that particular way are any more efficient than any other local authorities.
Local authorities should be judged by outcomes, not inputs or structures.
