The Royal Pharmaceutical Society leads the profession. If the Society is lacking in intelligence, judgment and vitality, the profession as a whole suffers. Within the Society, the most important institution is the Council. It decides policy and, through doing so, the future direction of the profession. For that reason, it is essential that the Council is representative of members at large and that as broad a range of opinion as possible is brought to the table. One means of ensuring that this is so is to create an environment in which pharmacists from all walks of life feel able to put themselves forward for election. We raise the subject now because the Council is looking at the way that its members are reimbursed for expenses and compensated for the time spent on Council business, which is part of the environment-creating process to which we refer. However, in doing so, it has caused unease in relation to reimbursement of locum expenses incurred by independent proprietor pharmacists. At present there is partial reimbursement of locum expenses (an allowance of £72 a day) but the Council, in seeking to change the way that expenses and allowances are paid, is considering removing the ability to claim at all. A paper making such a proposal - while at the same time offering, it must be said, significant improvements in other respects - was debated by the Council last week (see p251). As readers will note, the paper was discussed at great length and was in the end referred back for further thought. Some might believe that the debate simply exposed excessive self-interest. But such a view would be wrong. The strength of feeling about locum expenses that affected Council members displayed was entirely appropriate. It was quite clear that they believed that they would be placed in great financially difficulty simply through wanting to play a full part in the democratic processes of their profession. One of the arguments put forward in favour of not meetimg locum expenses was that, by paying members an allowance to prepare for and attend a meeting, it would amount to paying someone twice for the same block of time if locum fees were reimbursed as well. As a theoretical argument that has some attraction, but in practical terms the result could be most unfortunate. Community pharmacists running their own businesses, arguably the bedrock of the profession, would effectively be discouraged from offering themselves for election. It needs to be remembered that, unlike other professional establishments, a pharmacist must be present in a pharmacy for virtually the whole of the hours that it is open. Sole pharmacists leaving their premises for a day have no option but to employ a locum. In reality, of course, there would be no double payment to a person for time. The Council member would receive an allowance for preparing for and attending a meeting and the locum would be paid for the time that he or she spent in a pharmacy: two people; two lots of time; two payments. For some Council members, paying for a locum is an expense necessarily incurred in attending a Council meeting, committee meeting or other qualifying event. They have no choice. As such, they should, in The Journal's view, receive proper reimbursement. The Council was quite correct in deciding to think about the matter again.