Sir – It is well known that, like many governments before, the Coalition has opened the state cashbox, and has found much less in it than was hoped and, while desperately trying its hand at coping, has passed on much of the problem to county and city councils.

In accordance with our role of representing local concerns about services provided by authorities, here are some of our views:

  • County council proposed cuts: we agree with many of your contributors in deprecating cuts to many social services, severe cuts to libraries and library services and reduction of recycling centres. Reliance on willing volunteers is unlikely to work. We should prefer to see cuts in respect of expensive building and traffic schemes. Unfortunately it is difficult to make detailed constructive suggestions without access to financial information which (as you have previously reported) the county is slow to provide.
  • Government ideas: it may be true that the abolition of many quangos could lead to considerable savings. Media discussions about quangos in general, however, have mostly omitted discussion of particular quangos. We are especially concerned about the threat to Consumer Focus, the new name for the National Consumer Council, which absorbed Postwatch and Energywatch and so became perhaps the most important quango to give an independent voice to consumers generally.

We hope that your readers, aware of the issues which most affect them, will write to their MPs about these issues.

Bryan Birch, Kathleen M. Hall, Ruth Van Heyningen, Mary Waley, Patricia Wright

Members of Oxford Consumers Group Executive Committee