Budget setting for local councils is always a difficult process because legally you can only present an alternative budget that balances and uses money that actually exists.

Not presenting a budget, as we saw with Labour on the county council, or presenting an uncosted wish list, as we saw with the Liberal Democrats on the city, is phoney rhetoric. It is saying you are for something but not presenting a credible alternative.

The Greens on the county and the city have always been responsible and presented a fully costed alternative budget with the money found from the existing finances.

In the case of the county, the Green budget identified the money to save the libraries and many of the cuts to welfare provision for the sick, elderly and vulnerable.

In the city, the Greens put forward a budget that would save a range of services, stop compulsory redundancies, keep Temple Cowley Pools, stop the closure of St Clement’s Car Park, keep the area committees and retain the free pest control and green waste collection.

We found the money from cutting the number of councillors claiming allowances, taking our senior officers’ pay back to where it was in 2009, increasing charges to match inflation, cutting council marketing and promotion, and, most of all, using the incredibly bloated balances – which are acknowledged to be £5m more than they really need to be.

The Green budget showed more compassion, was more democratic and protected more jobs and services than the budget presented by Labour, but members still did not vote for it even though the budget balanced and the money was there.

I hope people look at the online video of the council meeting.

They will see an adjournment during which the Greens asked the Liberal Democrats to join them in selected themes where their rhetoric suggested they agreed with us. This included retaining Temple Cowley Pools and keeping the area committees. However, they simply refused.

You can only conclude that as the money was there, both Labour and the Liberal Democrats – for all their posturing – actually want these cuts to go through and, in essence, go along with the coalition Government line that services must be cut and the people must suffer.

David Williams (Green) Oxford city councillor