Labour's mantra in defence of elected mayors is going to be "the committee system is Victorian".

Labour has obviously decided this word contains enough pejorative connotations to save it the effort of trying to argue its case.

Some of the statements by Lord Bassam (Letters, July 12) take some beating. He describes the committee system as a "conspiracy against openness".

Let's take a quick look at what "transparency" the cabinet system of government has brought to Brighton and Hove since it was introduced without any democratic mandate in 1999:

The awarding of the Sita contract behind closed doors; the decision on the City Library PFI, also made in secret; the unsuccessful attempt to privatise revenues and benefit services without public consultation; the new parking scheme introduced in central Hove this week (public consultation was carried out this time, then promptly ignored).

As far as Brighton and Hove City Council employees are concerned, we have an arbitrary, opaque and unaccountable method of deciding how jobs should be graded. The attempts of the council unions to rectify this have been consistently rebuffed.

Finally, we have the notorious executive decision-making meetings, where all major decisions are now taken away from public gaze. In a Kafkaesque twist, the public may know when and where one of these meetings is taking place but may not go to it.

It's not surprising, when the council did recently carry out a public consultation exercise on what system we should have if we do not have a mayor, the improved committee system won overwhelming approval. The present system got hardly any support at all.

But don't be surprised if our leaders ignore this as well. It's what they normally do with public and staff opinions they find inconvenient.

-Andy Richards, chairman, Brighton and Hove Unison, Town Hall, Brighton