It is sometimes said “never believe everything you read in a newspaper” and that is certainly so when I am quoted in last week’s Gazette and Wiltshire Times as saying that I may not have taken the top job on Wiltshire Council if I had realised quite how difficult a time lay ahead.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In the course of a long interview with your journalist, I admitted that the job had changed and become more challenging and the responsibility sometimes kept me awake at night but I did not agree with the interviewer’s suggestion that, had I known what lay ahead, I would have thought twice about taking on that responsibility.

Of course in these difficult financial times, and like every other public body, the council faces a great challenge in the next few years to maintain services with a considerable reduction in our income.

I welcome that challenge and intend to ensure that, whatever difficulties lie ahead, Wiltshire Council becomes one of the leading local authorities in the country and continues to provide high-class services at a minimum cost to tax payers.

Jane Scott OBE, Leader, Wiltshire Council.