Sir – “None of us got involved in local politics to save money”. So you report councillor Ed Turner as telling the city council budget meeting (Report, February 19). This is sadly all too true of the current city councillors and the parties they represent. It has been my privilege to represent the Conservative Party at a number of local elections. I have always felt that saving public money was one of the reasons I and my party were involved in local and national politics.

I have always known that if you want to spend on B you have to be very careful what you spend on A. Of recent times, Conservatives have had to sit on the sidelines whilst the Lib-Dems wasted time and money on grandiose plans for a unitary authority, whilst the economies achieved by other Oxfordshire councils, by contracting out, were ignored by the city and whilst no one got to grips with the high sickness absence rates within the city workforce.

Luckily for Oxford, the Conservative county council has been implementing schemes such as the shared services, bringing together HR, finance etc, with a saving to council taxpayers of over £25m.

Luckily also for Oxford, the county has taken over the running of the park-and-ride sites and will shortly take over management of the city’s IT, both at a saving of about £2m to the city taxpayer.

I welcome the attempt of the city to join the county in spending our money with more care.

Vernon Porter Oxford