A FURIOUS member of Eastleigh's executive cabinet says her e-mail correspondence was "leaked" to the leader of the borough council.

Now Marilyn Birks - who sits as Labour's lone representative on the eight-strong cabinet - is claiming a Watergate-type scandal has hit the authority.

She said she had been "stunned" to learn that electronic correspondence sent to council officers regarding an item, which was to appear on a council agenda, had been passed to Liberal Democrat council leader Keith House.

She said: "I'm furious that my e-mails have either been intercepted or passed on to the council leader without my permission.

"I am demanding that the chief executive and the head of legal services find out who has been passing my private correspondence to Keith House."

She said it was the usual council practice for opposition councillors to be given impartial advice from council officers and that any requests for information were treated as private matters between the councillor and the officer concerned.

And she added: "There is no specific council policy which states that e-mail correspondence should be treated any differently."

Now, Ms Birks and Labour group leader Peter Luffman want the council to issue a policy statement assuring the privacy of e-mail correspondence.

Ms Birks commented: "No-one has said that all e-mails should be marked 'private and confidential' but, clearly, e-mails sent to officers have been treated as public information and freely accessed and distributed.

"If opposition councillors cannot access impartial officer advice in confidence then this bodes badly for any hopes of democracy in Eastleigh."

But Mr House told the Daily Echo: "E-mail, like written correspondence, is in the public domain unless people ask for it to be otherwise.

"Marilyn Birks asked for advice from staff - I'm sure the advice was impartial. Staff naturally want to ensure that policy advice which is impartial is available to all councillors."

And he added: "If Marilyn Birks wants her e-mails to be private she only has to say so - but what does she have to hide?"