S.K's letter (August 9), insults your readers' intelligence on the question of payment for the number plate on the mayoral car and my comments.

The statement I made to the council's executive committee was of the trends in council spending as a consequence mainly of changes in government policy which are causing overspends in the social services and education budgets of councils throughout the country.

Our worst case prediction of £3 million overspend was followed by an instruction to council officials to start examining the budget now for ways of bringing it back into balance. S.K's attempt to link that to the decision to buy the number plate T6 BUR for the mayor's car for £240 displays utter contempt for your readers' common sense. That one-off payment of £240 will have no impact whatsoever on the council's ability to deliver services, as S.K. knows full well.

Since S.K invoked a comparison with the household budget it might be instructive to scale down the two figures quoted above from the council's gross budget of approximately £250 million per year to the equivalents in a modest household budget of £5,000 per year.

Scaling down our £240 for the number plate equates to a one-off spend of one halfpenny!

Scaling down the forecast £3 millions overspend, likewise, produces an equivalent overspend of £60 per year. Not catastrophic but, since it is forecast to continue to increase in succeeding years, we have taken the prudent course of acting now.

The action includes looking for ways to reduce spending and for ways to increase income, particularly by urging the Government to accept the responsibility for funding expenditure which they have caused us to incur, a course in which we will have the support of our Members of Parliament.

COUNCILLOR

DEREK BODEN,

deputy leader, Bury MBC.