Sir – The senior managers’ team at Oxford City Council (‘Obscene’ pay rises, June 24) are worth every penny. If you pay peanuts you get monkeys.

These well-paid managers have cut costs to the taxpayer by a quarter and improved services to the public at the same time.

Our swimming pools are run better by a new co-operative, refuse collection has improved, the streets are cleaner, housing benefit is paid more promptly and park-and-ride is now free.

We have sharply reduced our carbon footprint, we are raising standards in rented homes and we have helped build hundreds of new housing association and council homes across the city. In waste collection and recycling alone, the council has cut costs by £1m each and every year. At the same time we have introduced weekly food waste collections and are making recycling easier. From one of the worst performing councils under the Lib Dems, Oxford, under Labour, is now one of the best district councils in the country. It is the managers, with the support of the rest of our excellent staff, who make this happen. It is these same managers who will enable the city council to defend the people of Oxford from some of the worst effects of the the damaging and unfair cuts about to be imposed by the Tory/Lib-Dem coalition Government. Oxford deserves first-class managers for a first-class city.

Cllr John Tanner (Labour) Board Member for a cleaner, greener Oxford