It is to be hoped that your recent lead story 'No public contracts without ethnic data' (see [2005] Gazette, 29 September, 1) gives a less than complete picture. I and, I am sure, most other taxpayers hope that in making its proposals the Legal Services Consultative Panel, and in endorsing them, the Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors have not forgotten the other key criteria - quality of service and value for money.

Of course discrimination on grounds of race, gender, etcetera, must be eliminated, but let us make sure that discrimination on the grounds of incompetence or inefficiency do not become victims of the crusade.


JD Loveridge, Amersham, Buckinghamshire