SIR – You reported that the £178k pay of our chief executive was to be debated by the full Council. It was subsequently approved and remains sacrosanct.

Merely as a PR sop it was decided that any new salaries or severance payments in excess of £100k would require full Council approval. So why are we paying Tony Reeves so much money?

Could it be that his salary is, in effect, decided not by the Council, but by the joint negotiating committee for Chief Executives of Local Authorities, on which around 400 chief executives are represented by their trade union ALACE?

Their aim is to maintain the highest possible national salary level, so that salaries such as those paid by Bradford can be justified on a comparative basis.

It is also apparent that the contracts of employment are slewed in favour of chief executives for they do not provide for performance-related pay nor for an element of salary to be withheld relative to performance It is claimed that local authorities’ chief executives’ salaries are less than those in the private sector, but there the consequence of failure is the sack.

John Pashley, Westcliffe Avenue, Baildon