Star comment: Cutting our firefighters tempts fate
Nobody is forced to become a local councillor.
It is a job that requires a lot of time, a lot of work, and often comes with little thanks.
And like in all walks of life, you have good councillors and bad councillors.
Figures revealed through the Freedom of Information Act raise some very important questions about the role of local representatives in Sandwell.
Huge disparities between the amount of official queries logged by councillors from their constituents have been exposed.
The inference is that some councillors are doing a much better job at representing their electors than others.
There are 72 councillors on the authority – all but one of them were elected as members of the Labour Party.
This is a council that has run its children's services so badly that the department has been taken out of its control, is embroiled in several alleged corruption scandals, and is dealing with making multi-million pound cuts to services.
But while some councillors like Elaine Costigan raised hundreds of issues over the last year, others like Mohinder Singh Tagger made just one inquiry.
You have to ask yourself whether having 72 elected members at the council is necessary or are some just there for the ride?
