Sir – I would like to suggest areas where the county and district councils might save our money.

First, they could follow David Cameron’s example. He is reducing the number of MPs and Ministers and reducing the pay of the latter. We could get by with fewer councillors.

If the 16 county councillors representing the city were reduced to 12 and similar cuts made throughout the county we would have about 20 fewer councillors — a saving of at least £160,000 a year.

Second, with ‘back office’ functions such as finance, HR, premises management and IT, the county have done much to remove duplication within the county council, what about between councils and indeed other public bodies within Oxforshire such as PCTs and the police?

The county-city deal on IT should be the first of many, not a one-off.

Third, councils should look more carefully at multiuse of premises and staffing. In Summertown we have a county-run school, county-run library, city-run leisure centre and a city-financed, volunteer-run community centre, but no sub post office.

Each facility resides in a different funding silo. Each has premises and staff.

Could we save costs and deliver a useful, set of services by configuring things differently?

I don’t suggest that librarians also act as lifeguards, but with, for example, PC-based video conferencing providing remote access to deep librarianship knowledge, could a remodelled library service be provided through the school or leisure centre, with Internet access provided through the community centre?

One of them might even host a sub post office and defray some of its costs thereby. We must look for such opportunities.

Vernon Porter, Oxford