A particularly dangerous malady appears to have taken hold at County Hall. Whenever, as local councillor, I contact a Wiltshire Council department on behalf of my residents, say with regard to highways or planning, I now seem to get the same response.

It goes on these lines: “I am sorry Councillor, we would like to be able to assist you, but unfortunately in the department we are currently experiencing a capacity issue.” To explain to readers; “capacity issue” is management speak for a lack of staff. Or to put it another way, the department concerned lack sufficient staff to adequately fulfil its functions. This, of course, relates back to the waves of redundancies that have swept over County Hall. Redundancies dictated by 30 per cent cuts in central government funding for local government.

So what happens is that when staff go, those who remain have to do more; their old job plus at least one other. At first nothing much seems to change. The work goes on as before, but gradually things get left, or ignored; a backlog builds up.

Then when councillors, and members of the public, ring in and ask why something has not been done - for example, parking or planning enforcement – we are now told there is a capacity issue. Don’t be fooled. Behind all the management speak; the reality is that the normal routine, day-to-day, functioning of a vital county-wide organisation with considerable responsibilities – many of them statutory – is gradually but inevitably slowing down in all manner of little, yet significant ways. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Jeff Osborn, Independent Wiltshire Councillor, Trowbridge.