I DO not know of the answer your correspondent Tony Adamson ("When the Jobs are Revalued" Hereford Times, March 11), will receive from the council leader or treasurer but I can respond from the staff's point of view.

The evaluation programme has not suddenly sprung into life 'at this critical time', but has been under negotiation for nearly five years with, following last year's hiccup mounting discontent, a settlement possible soon.

Quite properly, as guardians of local revenues the council has undertaken the exercise (a national agreement) along with the trade unions, to right both an unfair and, crucially, unequal pay system.

Without this happening the council would be open to expensive, possibly crippling, litigation we would properly take under equal pay legislation.

Prudence and the law dictates they put it right. As council tax-payers ourselves we are equally concerned as everyone else over tax hikes but also expect a responsible body like the local authority and its partners (eg. Focsa, Halo, Herefordshire Housing, Jarvis, etc), to comply with employment law.

On a general point on staff pay levels, the vital and often life preserving services this local authority provides are done so at the lowest of average pay rates not only in the West Midlands, but in the UK.

EDDIE CLARK, Branch Secretary, Herefordshire Unison.