IN recent decades successive governments have taken an increasingly market-driven approach to the provision of public services, which has meant a growing dependence on profit-driven companies rather than on public infrastructures paid for by all of us and freely available to everybody.

This is reflected in your recent news coverage, which has featured articles on cuts to libraries, the NHS, schools, railways, care for injured army personnel, carers’ support services and youth centres.

The issue has moved quickly in the past year from cuts to front-line service providers to cuts to core funding for services.

Core funding represents the heart at the centre of public service provision, without which no public service can survive, no matter how numerous or efficient the volunteers.

We ordinary people, who pay taxes on everything and every time we buy anything, are being robbed openly, by seeing our money disappear into the pockets of private companies and already incredibly rich people, while the services we pay for are deliberately dismantled before our eyes.

SUSHILA DHALL, Stable Close, Rewley Park, Oxford