A COMPUTER fault at City of York Council will cost taxpayers nearly £900,000 to put right, estimates reveal today.

Investigations were launched after the computer system broke down twice in one week, and left hundreds of members of staff "twiddling their thumbs."

Technicians have found the failures were caused mainly by the system being overloaded.

Council leaders have been told that, unless the cash is found quickly, the system will be paralysed by further crashes.

Tracey Carter, the council's head of information technology and communications, said: "The council is becoming ever more reliant upon the core network infrastructure and we have made no major investment in it since 1996. The need to do so is often invisible and difficult to justify until a major problem arises." The Evening Press was told of staff disquiet after the system crashed on November 5, and again two days later.

It meant 70 per cent of users were not able to get into their computers.

In-house computer experts have teamed up with private suppliers to look at the problems in the council's system, and have drawn up a list of work needed to improve it.

Mrs Carter said: "There is no apparent single cause of the problems and it is our joint analysis that the failures result from a combination of capacity overload, a network environment that cannot be technically managed and uncontrolled user activity."

The list of recommended work runs up a bill of £876,000.

Council leaders are expected to agree the spending when they meet on Thursday.

Updated: 10:40 Monday, December 17, 2001