THE Government was today urged to slash a mounting "burden" of red tape after it emerged that duplicate data requests were costing York thousands of pounds.

City of York Council has been asked to provide four reports - that contain pages and pages of the same information - to four separate Whitehall departments .

Deputy council leader Coun Andrew Waller said the Guildhall's environmental health and trading standards departments waste valuable time filling in the action plan reports. Every year experienced civil servants spend months pouring over documents about targets for the Food Standards Agency, Department of Trade and Industry, Health and Safety Executive and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Annually, this form-filling takes up about one third of a senior officer's time - equivalent to £10,000 in lost work.

Coun Waller today said that time could be spent providing services to York residents.

Too much paperwork was duplicated, he said, and he called for more 'joined up' thinking from a Government currently urging York council to be super-efficient ahead of this year's budget review.

He estimated that form-filling in general cost York council about £1 million each year.

Coun Waller, executive member for environment, said: "Officers have lobbied Government departments on this issue.

"The number of overlapping data reporting and assessment schemes is an unnecessary burden and impinges on the time available to officers in providing services."

He said just one internet-based service plan, containing all the information needed about performance goals, should be shared between the four Government agencies.

Coun Waller said officers had written to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) about the problem in June, but had yet to receive a response.

Colin Rumsford, head of environmental health and trading standards at City of York Council, echoed Coun Waller's concerns.

"I understand there's a need to plan and be accountable," he said. "But I think we could do it much more efficiently if the Government was more joined up. The view of the council is, why not provide one regulatory service plan? It makes more sense."

He said the problem, relating to gathering information on topics like restaurant inspections and food hygiene, had been building up over the years.

A spokeswoman for the ODPM said a response to the letter was in the pipeline.

She added: "The Local Government Minister is looking at ways to cut red tape and is always inviting suggestions on this."

Updated: 10:09 Tuesday, October 12, 2004