A LEIGH man has accused a council of giving him the sack - because they would not let him do his voluntary job properly.

Arthur Bent was accepted as a lay assessor inspecting residential homes for the elderly in the Wigan area.

But he's now been informed that his services are no longer required.

Wigan council's Inspection unit manager Gus McKenzie has told him: "I do not think it appropriate for you to continue as a lay assessor because we are unable to agree on what that constitutes."

It follows a clash of views over how the job should - or should not - be done.

And Mr Bent is accusing the council of paying 'lip service' to Government guidelines.

Mr Bent, 60 of Overton Street, Leigh, said: "When I volunteered I had hoped that my contribution would help the residents in the homes.

"But even after the first training session I could see that that was unlikely to happen.

"According to the government directives lay assessors should have a full role in the inspections and their views should be taken into account.

"But that is not happening.

A council spokesman confirmed that Mr Bent's services were no longer required.

He said: Mr Bent's view of his role as one of our 32 lay assessors was very different from that in the Dept of Health national guidelines.

"Far from flouting guidelines we are working absolutely in line with them.

"In fact the whole use of lay assessors was recently independently appraised by the Chief Executive.

"His comments were that lay assessors have been successfully introduced and the scheme is working very well.

"The Inspection Unit as a whole was complemented by the Social Services Inspectorate - the national Social Services watchdog - as being well managed and meeting all legal requirements.

"Without going into specific details Mr Bent had a very different idea of what he should be doing and wanted to go somewhat beyond the guidelines."

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