I AM responding to your correspondent Maggie Puttick from Highcliffe (Letters, January 31) who has completely misrepresented Bournemouth council’s financial savings programme.

The letter referred to an article which implied that in 2012 the council was expecting savings from the Mouchel contract alone of over £118m. This conclusion is wholly inaccurate and without foundation.

The sums quoted were extracted from the council’s Medium Term Financial Plan presented to cabinet in February 2012 and represented the level of savings that the council forecast it would need to make to balance its budgets in the future. The savings were always going to be met from across all the council’s budgets as part of the efficiency and transformation programme, and not just from the Mouchel contract.

In total they amount to £326million over 10 years.

I can confirm that the figures quoted in the article and the letter are unbelievable, simply because they are not true.

What I can state is that Bournemouth council continues to achieve a balanced budget position every year, thus meeting our forecast funding gaps, despite losing 50% (over £40m) of our government funding and seeing significant financial pressures in delivering on our responsibilities for looking after vulnerable children and the elderly. Indeed, we have allocated an additional £17million to these services over the past four years. All this without increasing council tax for Bournemouth’s residents.

However, Maggie Puttick is correct in one respect, that it is taxpayer’s money and not the council’s. We never forget that and indeed we are focussed on doing all we can to give the very best value for money to taxpayers for everything Bournemouth council spends on providing services to its residents.

CLLR JOHN BEESLEY, Leader of the Council