I WAS saddened to read Peter Pinfield's letter headlined "High-tech gremlins add to county's woes."

The fact that it is now apparently claimed £17m of cuts has taken its toll of social services computers, suggests that, even with the best will in the world, Mr Pinfield is trapped by bureaucratic inertia.

Were we not originally told the reason why Social Services ran up a predicted £4.3m loss was because their computer system couldn't talk to the accounts department's computer system?

Isn't the real reason the fact that there is no management plan in place, to maintain social services management systems to the required standards?

If social services computers are "old," why hasn't social services annual business plan provided for the updating of its computer systems?

Does our county council define jobholder responsibilities, for the maintenance and upgrade of its computer and management systems, and if they do, why were social services computer systems allowed to degrade to the point whereby they apparently didn't interface with other systems?

Councillor Pinfield has to earn some public respect for staying to face the consequences of social services cost overrun. That said, with £80m of the people's money to spend, the people are entitled to demand that money is managed responsibly.

N TAYLOR, Worcester.