After a shameful 12-week gap from April to July and a six-week gap from that month until September 26, it was notable to find a good dozen of our councillors absenting themselves from the full council meeting of what ought to be 78 councillors before the mayor and chief executive of Brighton and Hove City Council and only three councillors bothering to use the opportunity to hold the administration to account with written questions requiring formal replies to full council.

Councillors are paid £8,000 to represent voters' interests quite apart from their own party-political positions and personal hobby-horses.

Much hoo-ha and sleeping goes on and serious debate finds its moment if items are on the written agenda.

But councillors are throwing away opportunities to review the council position on a range of issues and to hold the administration to account when they fail to turn up or to submit probing questions in what should be huge numbers to these formal assemblies of councillors as a totality.

After next May's elections, there will be plenty of time on the hands of many current councillors, whose jobs will have disappeared in the cull from 78 to just 54 serving councillors.

Until then, they are still paid, still serving and still expected to show some energy and enthusiasm for the issues of the day.

-Valerie Paynter, Clarendon Road, Hove