SIR: This is partly a way of imparting information, but also in the hope of getting answers to questions raised, especially from Bolton based members of the government, or even members of the council.

What is nett pay? Since leaving school I am sure that I was always told that nett pay was the pay you take home, the gross pay less deductions. How many people in Bolton thought that was correct? You would be just as wrong as I was in thinking that.

Apparently, by order of the government, nett pay is no longer the same as take home pay, and they have even got a formula for working it out. Nett Pay = gross pay minus income tax, national insurance and half your contribution to a pension scheme.

Any other deduction is not included, so anything like Trade Union dues, or payments to government agencies, such as the Child Support Agency, are added to nett pay as a government cheat to falsely inflate earnings.

This has two effects, firstly it makes it appear that pay is on the way up, which makes the government look good, and secondly it also has the effect of making low paid workers non-eligible for any state benefit to subsidise low income.

Forget about the sleaze of ministers accepting money from Arab businessmen, this is the government cheating on a huge scale from poor old Joe Public, to save on the benefits bill.

It could be argued that this formula was brought in by the now defunct Tory government, but Labour are still using this method and have done since they took over.

How can the government expect anyone to have any incentive to work, if they are going to cheat the sucker out of what little he earns in the first place? What can he do about it? Absolutely nothing.

All you get from officials are lame excuses, "Well that's the way we work it out" or "There's nothing we can do about it". Surely though there is something, they could do about it, they are the government after all.

The truth is they don't want to do anything. It's more profitable to cheat the suckers. So much for a New Labour, with a promise of fairer government for all. It's a case of New government, same old cheating.

I look forward to any replies anyone might like to offer to my questions.

E Webber

Westbourne Avenue, Great Lever

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.