I WISH to reply to the letters from Richard Lamb and Jonathan Charles Bonner (January 3) expressing concern about the council's computer problems.

While it is true that such problems have affected our services, they do not merit the type of comments made by Mr Lamb in particular.

To set the record straight:

- Councillors' approved an extra £300,000 from the council's reserves to try to solve the problems. This is additional to the long-standing planned improvements/developments of the system. It would be expensive and almost impossible to deliver major transaction-based services, such as housing benefits and council tax collection without modern computer facilities. Furthermore, the council's previous system would have been even more expensive to update, as all upgrades had to be carried out on 2,300 individual computers;

- There is no implication either in the Evening Press article, or the committee report on the computer problems, that staff are 'playing games' on the computer. The reference to 'uncontrolled user activity' is a reference to the growth in both the number of users and the extent to which they use their computers. If anything this demonstrates the council's modern and efficient approach to service delivery, as well as the increased volumes of work that council staff are dealing with.

The citizens of York and council staff can be assured that the council's IT staff and myself are doing all we can to resolve the problems and ensure that an efficient and reliable system is available for our customers.

Simon Wiles,

Acting Director of Resources,

City of York Council.

Updated: 10:47 Tuesday, January 22, 2002