OXFORD city councillor Nuala Young seems sadly not to have understood the city council’s constitution or how the finances work (Oxford Mail letters, November 5).

Motions ‘on notice’ at council meetings have no relevance for the council’s day to day administration, other than as advice to the city executive board and officers.

Motions are therefore most appropriate for discussing topics which fall outside the council’s jurisdiction, to allow members to express a collective view to outside bodies.

At the recent council meeting, for example, we had an excellent and wide ranging debate about the county council’s proposal to transfer Oxford School to the United Learning Trust as an Academy.

Members opposed this unanimously and voted to ask me, as leader, to write to the county council to ask it to consider alternative approaches that will be better for the future of the school.

The council’s toilets, on the other hand, are entirely under our control.

Decisions on their management and improvement fall to the city executive board, not to the full council. When making these decisions, the board is required to follow the council’s policy framework and the budget – both agreed by the full council.

The proposed saving of £50,000 per annum from closing a small number of public toilets has come forward in order to implement the budget for 2009/10.

It should be noted that none of the political groups proposed the removal of this saving from the draft budget when it came to council.

The proposed closures have been discussed in public at the six area committees and at the scrutiny committee, and have been the subject of an extensive public consultation exercise.

The scrutiny committee has also exercised its right to call in the proposal for further examination and discussion on November 16.

Thereafter, it has to be discussed again at the city executive board before any decision can be made.

There have been many opportunities for public discussion and debate on this issue, and another discussion at council is not relevant to the council’s decision making processes.

Councillor Young may wish to turn council meetings into an irrelevant debating forum, but other members recognise that there are many more effective ways of dealing with the important issues facing the city.

BOB PRICE, Leader, Oxford City Council