THIS morning I learn that the new chief constable of Dorset is to receive a salary increase of £10,000 to £146,000 per annum.

I then read that the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons has published a report which is pretty damning of the way new fitness to work tests for the Department of Work and Pensions have been conducted. Thirty-eight per cent of assessments have been overturned on appeal and at considerable cost to the general taxpayer and particularly where people with long-term incurable conditions are being forced on repeated occasions to prove they are not able to work – despite supplying medical evidence that their condition is permanent and will not improve. One nation?

GORDON CANN , Craigmoor Avenue, Bournemouth