THE council has begun its annual budget-setting process. I wanted to write and offer one or two suggestion for ways to save money. Councillor Peter Bryant

THE council has begun its annual budget-setting process. I wanted to write and offer one or two suggestion for ways to save money. Councillor Peter Bryant this week celebrates six months as North Somerset Council's Executive member for special projects. As an Executive member he is paid nearly £16,000 a year by local taxpayers. Captivated as I am by Peter's every utterance, I have been looking keenly to see what he has been up to. Six months in the job and he had made no formal decisions recorded on the council's website. He has answered no questions from fellow councillors at full council meetings and he has presented no reports to them either.This week, after six months and £8,000 in pay, he is finally due to present a report to a meeting of the council's Executive, his first in that time. The report is around 4.000 words long so that's about £2 a word. Not quite in Jeffery Archer's league, but a worthy effort nonetheless, though I don't suppose for a minute he actually wrote it.It is a wonder that he can cope with all the work, isn't it? But we need not worry about poor Peter. The council actually has two Executive members for special projects. The other one hasn't written any reports, answered any questions or made any decisions either, but at least they can keep each other company! So that's my suggestion to the Conservative leader from Portishead: get rid of these two who apparently do little to justify their pay and save us all a few quid.MIKE BELL - Liberal Democrat Prospective MP for Weston