Recent letters in your columns have expressed concerns at the council's proposals for service reductions, contained in the budget agreed on 17 February. I believe councillors of all parties understand and sympathise with these concerns; we are after all residents of our town too.

Harlow Council has a long history of providing a wide range of services which are not required by law, but are valued by residents who use them. Unfortunately, the council's income and savings are not sufficient to cover the cost of providing them.

Over the last fifteen years, councillors of all political persuasions have understandably used reserves to protect these services. These reserves have however now been spent, and are no longer available.

In seeking to preserve all the services it has traditionally provided, the council has been criticised for spreading its resources too thinly, at the expense of quality of service. This is evident not only from inspection reports, but also from surveys of public satisfaction with the council.

The council faces serious financial pressures, from inflation and pension fund liabilities to the requirement to transfer more money back into the housing account each year, and new responsibilities such as licensing.

For all these reasons, with limits on increases in council tax, and reserves reduced to the minimum safe level, the only option open to the council is to reduce spending in some areas to balance its books.

In order to advise us in taking these difficult decisions, we commissioned a survey of a statistically representative sample of the Harlow population as a whole, to find out which services they most valued, and which reductions - albeit painful ones - would cause the least distress. The survey was of a type that has been increasingly used by other councils facing similar difficult choices, and wanting to gauge the public's view.

The results of that survey have informed our budget. We took a lead from the vast majority of residents who preferred the provision of services to cuts in taxes, and where possible we have protected the services residents told us they most valued.

The budget was agreed on 17 February by all parties - a rare display of unanimity that demonstrates just how serious Harlow's financial position is, and how inevitable the proposals for savings that the budget contained.

As a result of the budget, a number of premises previously used by the council for the provision of services will shortly be empty. In some cases this will be from early April. In the case of child care services for the over 5s operating from dedicated premises, these will continue until the end of July, to allow parents time to make alternative arrangements.

Clearly no-one's interests are served by vacant premises that are boarded up for long periods of time. I would therefore very much welcome approaches to the council from local organisations who have the capacity to run services from premises that will shortly become vacant, and who have financially sound plans that do not involve the council in expenditure for which we have no budget.

These are difficult decisions for councillors to have had to make. However, as has already been pointed out in your columns, the fact that all three parties united to agree the budget last week is a clear indication that no less painful alternative was available.

Yours faithfully
Councillor Lorna Spenceley
Joint Leader, Harlow Council

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For more information, see our Budget Briefing (PDF 900kB), and also the Council's press release, from which you can also download a number of budget and background documents.