So Ed Turner, the deputy leader of Oxford City Council, says it is “rubbish” to suggest that Labour is hoarding money ready for spending spree just before the local elections next year (Oxford Mail, May 2) However, what are the facts?

Thanks to Green Party questions put down in council we now know that the council is now nearly £2m better off than they suggested at the annual rate fixing, when we had the crocodile tears that Government cuts in funding had forced them to introduce wide-ranging cuts in services and redundancies.

In February, they said they were keeping more than £3m in reserves.

Now we know they have well over £5m.

On a budget of much less than £30m this can only be described as extremely bloated.

Other authorities with similar-sized budget set aside £1m to £2m as a reserve.

This is at a time when every job in Oxford is precious and every service is vital.

Local government cuts hurt and not to spend money already collected is wrong.

It is now clear that the well-thought-out Green budget that would have stopped the compulsory redundancies, saved services and moved forward a number of Green infrastructure projects could easily have been afforded and still left a healthy reserve.

It was voted down by Labour and their cuts budget went ahead.

In fact the £9m cut over the next four years is less than the £12m introduced by the previous Labour government over the last three years.

Locally the Labour Party are not even following what their leader says, ie spreading the cuts over a longer period of time.

Clearly the Labour budget in February was a con to fool the council unions into reducing their members’ terms and conditions, especially pensions, and to hoard money ready for next year when the council faces elections.

Let’s see what happens.

David Williams, Leader of the Green group, Oxford City Council