I refer to Councillor Bob Bibby's letter to the Bury Times (Selling the family silver is the biggest sin', September 28).

I commend Coun Bibby's, albeit belated, stoical defence of the council in not selling artworks to bridge a budget shortfall.

I guess it is a perfectly reasonable position to take for an opposition party who, after all, have the luxury of not being accountable for balancing budgets.

Indeed, this is the opposition party that made no effort to put counter proposals forward to avoid the necessity to sell this artwork or other areas to bridge an overall shortfall of £10m, which the ruling administration has successfully achieved.

Coun Bibby is given to using very emotive language and likened the council's action to selling the family silver as being a sin'.

It is also a perfectly reasonable position for opposition parties to hold the ruling administration to account.

What is just as important to the residents of Bury, though, is that they just don't have to listen to vacuous comments and grandstanding. They know that there is a transparent scrutiny process and external auditors who hold the administration to account.

Over the past six months since the overall budget was adopted by the whole council there have been plenty of opportunities then and since to come forward with proposals.

Is he afraid to identify, before next May's elections, what services the Tories intend to cut to fund the £500,000 and any possible shortfalls for 2007-2008?

Maybe Coun Bibby wants to find the £500,000 by reducing the increased investment of £1.5m we put into Children's Services this year or reduce the budget in Adult Care Services or rein in the spending on recycling and development of our parks programme. Come on Coun Bibby, let's have an open and honest debate about your budget plans and give the electorate the opportunity to judge how fit the Tories are to take on this responsibility.

Will the Tories, for the first time in 20 years, be bothered to submit an alternative working budget that the electorate can vote on or will it be more rhetoric and tub-thumping and populist sound bytes.

What Coun Bibby doesn't say is that the facts speak for themselves. Year on year Labour budgets have to manage with low Aggregate External Funding but this, coupled with a political desire to minimise council tax rises, has resulted in Bury being a low taxing, low spending, low borrowing authority.

Council tax levels equate to approximately 15 per cent of budget requirement, with average Band D council tax one of the lowest for Metropolitan authorities.

Low cost does not however translate into low performance. Our services compare well with other authorities.

In 2004/05, 62 per cent of national performance indicators were above average and 61 per cent of these indicators had improved (on top of 57 per cent improvement from the year before).

Good progress was also made in delivering local priorities as set out in the council's Bury Plan. Despite spending in education being below the lower quartile, our schools produce exceptional results at all Key Stages (including GCSE) and exclusion rates are falling, whilst attendance is rising (contrary to the national picture).

The Audit Commission's Annual Audit and Inspection Letter (Jan 2006) comments on good progress against last year's performance, resulting in strong performance in all three areas, including the top grade for education. This includes clear evidence of improvement, in some cases well ahead of target dates'. To maintain this momentum, an extra £1.5million has been invested in Children's Services this year.

Priority investment in our cleaner, safer, greener initiative has produced positive results. Satisfaction ratings show that 80.4 per cent of residents are satisfied with their neighbourhood as a place to live and 77.6 per cent are satisfied with parks and open spaces in the borough.

We now have 10 out of 14 parks attaining the prestigious Green Flag award (with the highest ratio of flags to parks nationally) and have now won the Britain in Bloom for the past three years in the Large Town category, making the Bury the greenest' borough in Britain. Bury Market is acknowledged nationally as being the best in the country.

Adult Care Services spending is achieving value for money in relation to comparator authorities and in 2005/06 performance indicators show continue improvement with 60 per cent of indicators in the top bandings.

Far from burdening local council tax payers we get more for our money than most.

Overall, performance has exceeded costs (and council tax rises) year on year since 2002. Hardly, I would conclude, the record of a profligate or wasteful administration where being proud of protecting our jewel in the crown - the key frontline services on behalf of all citizens - isn't sinful, it is stunning.

COUN MIKE CONNOLLY Deputy Leader, Bury Council