In a desperate attempt to hide the hole in his budget plans which could lead to service cuts, Charles Shouler, county council cabinet member for finance, has resorted to irrelevant arguments and petty point scoring (Oxford Mail, April 16).

Mr Shouler does not deny that pressures identified by council officers amounting to £21m over the next five years - including pressures relating to demographic change and waste disposal - have not been funded by the Tory cabinet.

Instead, he creates a smokescreen by implying that the unfunded demographic pressures on social care services, which rise from £2m in 2010/11 to £9m in 2012/13, may be met through the redesign of services.

In fact, the proposals for redesigning care services are supposed to be delivering efficiency savings rising to £5m by 2012/13 to meet other pressures.

It beggars belief that they can deliver another £9m to meet the pressures from demographic change.

He also says the Tories have more unallocated money than the other political groups in their medium-term financial plan.

What he neglects to mention is that, if they had allocated the money needed to plug the hole in their spending, they would have had significantly less unallocated money than Labour.

The reality seems to be that the Tories are ducking the big challenges facing local government because of their irresponsible promises on council tax and free park-and-ride.

In particular, they are planning levels of social care funding which will not keep pace with the needs of an ageing population. That is why I fear Tory cuts in care services after the 2009 county council elections.

BARBARA GATEHOUSE (Councillor) Labour spokesman on social and community services Oxfordshire CountyCouncil