MY former colleague, John Power, persists in coming up with vague and emotive assertions, in an attempt to persuade your readers that the county council has plenty of money. Unfortunately for all of us, this is contradicted by the facts.

As you have reported several times, government funding to the county council will be cut by more than 40 per cent between 2010 and 2018, although the demand for our services is growing.

A total of £127m of cuts have already been delivered. We now have another £100m or so of cuts to find. We have no control over the people employed in schools but, excluding this, staff have been cut by 30 per cent in the past three years (a 24 per cent cut in full-time equivalent staff). Senior managers have been cut by 48 per cent. Almost all our reserves will be spent over the next few years.

I can show in detail why the assertions that John has made are misleading, but it would make this letter too long to print.

I’m writing this to set out the facts for your readers, not to defend the county council. All the county councillors from every party agree that the Government cuts are going to do terrible damage to essential services in Oxfordshire, hurting especially children, older people, the poor and the homeless. We have all appealed repeatedly to the Tory-Lib-Dem coalition in Westminster to stop hitting local government harder than any other sector, but they are not listening.

SUSANNA PRESSEL, City Councillor for Jericho and Osney Ward, County Councillor for Jericho and Osney Division