Vim Rodrigo claims that 'our council Is mushrooming' (Oxford Mail, March 3). I would be happy to send him a copy of a report to Oxford City Council's finance scrutiny committee on staffing figures, which paints a slightly different picture.

This shows that in most business units, staffing levels have remained fairly static over the last two years. This is because Labour has asked all units to consume inflationary pressures within their budgets.

This has meant managers have had to look closely every year at where they can make efficiencies.

By doing this, we have saved money which we have redistributed towards the services that residents have told us are their priorities -- street cleaning, street wardens, more social housing and more kerbside recycling.

While there has been an overall increase in staffing levels, two thirds of this increase has been in Oxford Building Solutions because of the extra work needed to bring our council houses to the Decent Homes Standard.

Having more operatives on the ground carrying out this multi-million pound programme of much-needed improvements to tenants' homes is surely a good thing?

Although there is a lot of work still to do, by making year-on-year efficiency savings, we have kept the council's budget balanced, kept the city's share of council tax increases as low as we can at four per cent (in stark contrast with the Lib Dem/Tory county council) and invested in front-line services that residents rightly want improved. RICK MUIR (Councillor), Vice-chairman, Finance Scrutiny Committee, Oxford City Council