John Gould (Oxford Mail, January 28) is absolutely right when he says “managers must take their share of council cuts” and I can assure him they are.

Between July 1 2010 and March 31 2011, nine senior posts have already been deleted with another three to go by the end of the financial year.

That is a 40 per cent reduction at this level of the organisation. Annual full year savings by removing these 12 posts is £1,142m.

Back in the summer of 2010, we announced a reduction of 25 per cent in management costs as part of our business strategy.

We have clearly gone further than this at the top of the organisation, and we are now working through the next level of managers as part of our review of management layers and spans of control.

The changes we are making to the organisational structures will help us realise the savings and efficiencies required in the current economic climate.

In recent years, many organisations in both the private and public sectors have reduced the number of management layers within their organisational structures.

This has led to benefits including faster decision making, improved intra-departmental cooperation, employee empowerment and significant cost savings.

We firmly believe that we are on track to secure these benefits.

Our Shared Services initiative, instigated by John Howell when he was still an Oxfordshire county councillor and cabinet member, is yielding savings of £2.7m per annum.

Digs about PAs and secretarial support are cheap and easy but senior managers, managing multi-million pound budgets and large groups of staff need support in their roles if they are to prioritise their time, effort and skills appropriately.

We are taking the downsizing of public sector spending seriously; it is important that we share the pain across the organisation at all levels and do as much as we can to protect front line services.

However, given the scale of the cuts we face, it would be dishonest to pretend we can protect the front line completely. We cannot.

Keith R Mitchell, Leader of the Council, County Hall, Oxford