SIR — We read in your esteemed journal (March 6) that a comprehensive performance assessment by the Audit Commission has awarded Somerset County Council a four star rating for the third year in a row.

Are you all rejoicing and bursting with shared civic pride at this extraordinary achievement?

Neither am I.

Perhaps some of us have noticed one or two niggling little matters that the Audit Commission have missed.

What about the cost of all those foolish speed restriction signs that the council erected without the sanction of the Avon and Somerset police and which had to be removed due to a huge public outcry?

What about the £25 million worth of taxpayers' money that vanished with a sinking Icelandic bank?

What about the on-going controversy over the contract with "South West One", worth some £500 million over ten years?

The details of this arrangement are about as transparent as a vat of lumpy custard, despite our MP raising the issue in the House of Commons.

That there appear to have been some possible "conflicts of interest" in this deal have now attracted the journalistic sleuths at "Private Eye", who have given the topic top billing in their regular anti-corruption column headed "Rotten Boroughs".

Perhaps the inspectors have an audit system that consists of ticking boxes on a pre-arranged set of forms and precludes either reading the papers, or looking at bank statements?

Never mind! We've got four stars, so everywhere else must be so much worse...

Steven Dear,

Northfield Road,