I am afraid politicians necessarily cultivate thick skins and I would normally ignore the sort of mindless rant from Richard Anderson (Oxford Mail, September 22), but his untrue statements might be seen as a reflection on our hard working staff – so I would like to remind him of a few facts that give a rather different picture of Oxford-shire County Council.

The council is “performing well”; literally.

In our last assessment, dated December 2009, the Audit Commission rated us as just that. Of course, this rating includes our transport schemes.

Further, the council was awarded three out of four for both managing performance and use of resources.

Both Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission described the council’s children’s services and adult social care services, respectively, as ‘performing well’.

Our six month review by the Care Quality Commission confirmed that we had made “good progress” since our last inspection.

Finally, our fire service was recently described as a “good, low cost, effective service striving to continuously improve” in its operational assessment peer review.

We have just received an unqualified report from our auditors for our financial statements – as we have for the past five years.

Sorry, Mr Anderson, but the truth looks likely to get in the way of the fictions you would like to peddle.

By the way, have you been down Queen Street recently or to the Green Road roundabout? Both schemes were completed on time and to budget. And both are a huge improvement on what was there before.

Keith Mitchell, Leader of the Council, County Hall, Oxford